


Resolute Abstraction

by VespidaeQueen



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, Modern AU, Reincarnation AU, Romance, Slow Burn, college professor au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 04:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5276816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solas is an art professor; Lavellan teaches history. Sometimes, Solas thinks he knows her from somewhere, but he cannot place why. He remembers nothing, but the story of the last Inquisitor and the Dread Wolf is somehow familiar in a way he cannot express.</p><p>Modern reincarnation AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Resolute, adjective: admirably purposeful, determined, unwavering.
> 
> Abstraction, noun: 1. the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events; 2. Freedom from representational qualities in art; 3. An impractical idea; something visionary and unrealistic; 4. the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in what I can only call an absolute disaster, the original posting for this fic was deleted, which means all the wonderful comments you've left are gone (now living only in my email inbox, so I do at least have a record of them somewhere!). Since I don't have any way to reply to any of the comments left before 11/24, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has commented. I've really appreciated everything you've had to say, from appreciation for the story to speculation on where it's going and everything in between.
> 
> Thank you so much, and hopefully you'll continue to enjoy this story!

He stays up until past midnight painting.

It is not unusual that he does so. To complete a painting in one sitting, to bring it from concept to finality in an afternoon, an evening, a night. He lays down paint in even coats, wipes it away with bits of tissue until he’s drawn out the luminosity of the canvas beneath. He dips his brushes into turpentine, the acrid smell so familiar that he does not even register it.

His colors turn muddy and bleed into one another; he is impatient, always impatient. The canvas is still wet, but he looks at it critically. A distorted wolf, half in shadow. He cannot see its eyes, for how the colors have run.

He is awake until three. He has classes in the morning.

***

“You look like shit,” Dorian says, pushing a disposable cup into his hand. Solas stares at it, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I am a kind, considerate person, and you don’t deserve a friend like me. When you don’t look like you’re about to drop dead from lack of sleep, _then_ you can start glaring at me for bringing you unsolicited coffee.”

“Thank you,” he says. The heat of the coffee burns his fingertips through the wax-coated cup. He tentatively sips at it.

“I made sure there was enough sugar in it to positively _drown_ the taste of coffee,” Dorian says as they walk along the path. A student rushes past them, nearly knocks into Solas’ arm. “Destroying good coffee like that, _honestly_. The things I do for you, Solas.”

“It is not my fault that you drink the vile stuff with absolutely nothing added.” For all his words indicate otherwise, Solas _is_ grateful for the caffeine. For all that he despises both coffee and tea, he will fully admit that there are many days he would not be able to get through without.

Dorian knows this. It’s why he’s so often carrying two large coffees with him whenever they manage to meet up in the mornings before their earliest classes.

It’s something they’ve done for years now, whenever they hold classes on the same morning. With the art building directly adjacent to the science hall, it’s near impossible to avoid him anyway. _If_ he wanted to.

He finds he does not want to avoid Dorian.

“So, _Solas_ ,” Dorian says, and he draws out his name in a very particular way. The way that indicates he’s about to do _something_ he knows Solas will disapprove of.

Solas presses his lips into a thin line.

“No.”

Dorian gets a rather puffed up, offended look upon his face. “I haven’t even asked you yet!”

“You are about to ask me if I wish to engage in some sort of social activity tonight. The answer is _no_.”

“You’re _positively_ antisocial. Solas, if you wish for anyone to like you, you _must_ actually make appearances outside of your studio on occasion. The rest of the faculty are starting to think you’re some sort of ghost.”

“I hope you know that I do not find that offensive at all.”

Dorian’s mouth scrunches up. “Drat. I’ll just have to get better at insulting you, then. Besides, I’m certain you’ll enjoy yourself. It’s only a book release - Varric’s put out the next bit of drivel in his new romance series and we’re celebrating by getting ridiculously drunk. Cassandra will be there, and I _know_ the two of you get along.”

It would be easier not to go, Solas thinks. He could hide in his studio and paint, a far cry from spending an evening attempting to interact with others and keeping a smile on his face. But Dorian is right about several things, and Solas _does_ enjoy Cassandra’s company.

It could not be _all_ bad, he supposes. There are worse things he could do with his night.

“I will think about it,” he tells Dorian, who seems to think this a minor victory.

“ _Excellent_. Be ready by seven.”

“I said I will _think_ about it.”

***

Solas drinks his coffee; it’s sickly sweet on his tongue.

He doesn’t feel awake at all.

 

***

The young man has fair hair the color of straw and charcoal smudged across his left cheek. He stands at an easel in the far corner of the room, drawing steadily.

Solas had not seen him come in at the beginning of the class; he suspects that he came in late. Or perhaps he came in early, and Solas had missed him. Perhaps he had always been there.

“I’m drawing flowers,” the young man says when Solas comes by to see his progress. And so he is; rough shapes blocked in upon the paper, charcoal thick and black.

“I see you are employing negative space today, Cole,” he says, the name falling from his tongue easily. “One could say you are drawing around the flowers, but not the flowers themselves.”

Cole turns his head to look at Solas. There are hollows beneath his eyes, like he has been up too late studying.

“Sometimes you have to look for what is missing,” he says. “Empty spaces where things used to be, apparent only when you see the shapes around them.”

“Precisely,” says Solas. “Very good work today.”

“Thank you,” Cole says as Solas moves on to the next student. He makes a note to remember to mark Cole as present, though he does not remember anyone named Cole on the class list.

***

_[Dorian] 11:30 am: Have you thought enough yet?_

_[Solas] 11:43 am: You have hardly allowed me sufficient time to form a proper opinion, but yes. I will be there._

***

His last class finishes at six; he shuts himself up in his office when the last student has gone. The room doubles as his own studio, canvases stacked against the walls, paint tubes neatly organized in their boxes. He realizes that he’d left the turpentine open from the night before and a good deal has evaporated.

The unfinished, messy painting of a wolf sits upon an easel. Solas stares at it, a furrow between his brows. There is something he does not like about it, though he cannot pinpoint what.

Dorian will be there for him at seven, he knows, but he cannot shake the discomfort the unfinished painting is causing. He sits down before the painting, feet caught on the rungs of his old, battered stool, and he pulls forth paint and brushes. Before he can think the better of it, he drags a brush loaded with white paint across the canvas, cutting through the form of the wolf.

Negative space, he thinks as the light paint covers up the darker beneath it. The absence of something itself being a form unique.

White paint mars the wolf; he will need to repaint some of it once the canvas dries, but for now he simply pulls the brush across it, lines cutting away at the already painted form.

“What is _that_ supposed to be?” Dorian says from behind him, and Solas blinks, for he had not noticed him come in. The clock reads _6:56_. “Some sort of mess of branches? Not quite your usual delicacy, is it?”

“It is a work in progress,” Solas says, dipping his brush in turpentine to clean it. “I believe you said to be ready at seven.”

“So I did. You have four minutes; would it kill you to change out of that dreadful sweater? Wait, no, do not answer that. Of _course_ it would kill you.”

Solas dries the brush upon a stained rag and caps the paint tube. “I’m sorry, I’ll attempt to wear designer clothing next time I paint. I’m certain the look will only be improved with the accidental application of oil paint.”

Dorian sighs the long suffering sound of a friend who has heard this same quip many times. “Well, it’s too late now. Come on, my man, get up! Be social! At the very least, talk to Cassandra, I know she’s missed you.”

As Dorian near shoves Solas out the door, he thinks that, perhaps, he has missed Cassandra as well.

***

There is a six foot tall cardboard cutout of Varric standing beside a pile of books. There is an actual Varric standing next to it, who seems to take far too much amusement in the giant version of himself. The room is loud, filled with people and sound and smell.

It’s certainly not _tame_ for a book release party. He should have known. Varric is not known for subtlety.

Solas has a complicated relationship with parties. On one hand, he has a deep aversion to the noise that tends to come along with them, and the vast majority that Dorian has dragged him to over the years hit a decibel that causes his head to ache and his ears to ring. On the other, he takes a certain delight in seeing the interactions of those around him, the intricate subtleties of how people attempt to ingratiate themselves with others.

“So what do you think, Chuckles?”

“About the book or _this_?” Solas asks him. Varric rolls his eyes and passes him a drink. “I apologize, I did not have time to read the advanced copy you gave me.”

“Shame. I thought _this_ one would be right up your alley. Ancient elves, old historical things, _magic_ \- why, I might as well have dedicated this book to _you!_ ”

“I assume it’s _not_ dedicated to me.” Solas takes a tentative sip of his drink. It’s something sweet that fizzes slightly. He tastes the bite of vodka beneath the other flavors.

“Alas, I’ve dedicated it to my dearest of muses. Who’s mighty editing pen made me cut my favorite scenes because they ‘did not fit the flow of the story’.”

“So, Cassandra then.”

Varric laughs. There is something terribly affectionate about the sound. For all that Varric and Cassandra bicker, it’s telling that all of his most recent books have been dedicated to her.

“Who else, now that my lovely Hawke has decided I’ve written too many political thrillers based off her life? No, you’ll see why this newest one is dedicated to Cassandra. _If_ you read it. Now, come on Chuckes. You’ve been hiding over here for the whole evening, and if you don’t start acting like you’re having fun, people are going to start forgetting you’re even here! Loosen up, have a drink - you know? I’ve got someone you _have_ to meet. Come on, or I’ll send that cutout home with you.”

There are few things Solas has less of a need for than a six foot tall cardboard Varric Tethras. While he does not particularly with to socialize, he knows from experience that when Varric wants to introduce him to a friend, he _will_ introduce them. So Solas peels himself away from the corner - he has not been hiding, simply _observing_ , but he hardly expects Varric to understand the distinction - and crosses the floor. He dodges a couple as they head out to the dance floor, trailing at Varric’s heels.

It seems as though they are walking towards Cassandra; Solas can see her from across the room. She’s tall, imposing in a way that makes her stand out even when seated. She appears to be in deep discussion with someone who he cannot see save for the outline of one shoulder and a hand holding what looked to be the same red, vodka infused drink that he had.

“Seeker, can I trouble you for a moment?” Varric says as they approach. Cassandra turns her head and Solas can see the scar from where shrapnel had caught her across the face when she was overseas several years before.

“You _always_ trouble me, Varric,” she says. There’s no actual rancor in Cassandra’s voice. Varric laughs.

“I simply want to steal away your delightful friend.”

“I don’t mind being stolen,” says Cassandra’s conversation partner. Her voice is kind and soft, with the telltale accent of someone from Ferelden. Possibly from the Marches, given the specific lilt to her words. She is still blocked from his sight. “What do you need, Varric?”

“I’ve got someone here I want you to meet. Come on, Chuckles, stop lurking. Meet Lavellan.” Varric pushes him forward as Cassandra steps to the side.

His heart stops.

Or, possibly, it jumps. Or jolts. It seems to pause in his chest, before restarting faster than before. He feels, for one wild instant, like his entire world is off kilter. Like vertigo has caught him in its grasp. It is an impossible, illogical reaction to meeting someone. It is the heart-pounding feeling of unexpectedly seeing someone who you have not seen in years, who you’ve missed so desperately.

It is unexpected, because he is quite certain he has never met this woman before.

She stares at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. She looks as startled, as surprised, as he feels.

“Oh, _Fen’harel_ ,” she says, and he thinks that such an odd thing to say. _Fen’harel_ \- an archaic curse that’s been taken up by teenagers looking to add something new to their repertoire of swearing, and there is absolutely no mistaking her for a teenager. If anything, she looks as though she is close to him in age, possibly a few years younger. “Where are my manners.” She switches her drink from her right hand to her left and reaches out to him. “Dr. Lavellan. I’m Varric’s historical consult on his new book.”

She’s wearing a sleeveless dress; he thinks, at first, that she is wearing a black glove that comes up to her elbow, but he sees now mechanical articulation upon her fingers. There’s elaborate silver and white etchings upon her prosthesis, though in the dimmed light he cannot quite make out the particular of those designs.

He reaches out and takes her right hand. Shakes it firmly. He realizes there is white paint spattered along the side of his hand, curving up his wrist.

His palm burns where his skin presses against hers. The vertigo passes.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions,” he says, and a complicated dance of emotions crosses her face. Shock, sadness, amusement - it is the last one that blooms fully upon her face.

“No last name? Or no first name?” He thinks she is teasing him; he can hear the laughter in her voice even over the din of the room.

“Should I provide you with more, when you’ve only given me one of yours?” Beside him, Varric gives a long suffering sigh.

“One name and a title of sorts,” she says, and there is still laughter in her words. She does not appear to have taken any slight to his response. “So, _Solas_. Cassandra has been telling me something of you tonight.”

“Odd,” Solas says, and he glances first to Cassandra, and then to her counterpart. “Varric has been quite insistent that I meet one of his friends.”

She smiles at him; her teeth are very white and very even. “Between you and me, I believe there’s been something of a _conspiracy_ to have us introduced.”

“A conspiracy? Indeed.” Solas glances once more at Varric, who holds his hands up.

“Don’t look at me! It was all Sparkler’s idea. _You_ like history, _she_ likes art; she consulted on my book, you did the cover art - naturally, we all thought that you might like to meet!”

A brilliant smile grows upon Lavellan’s face. “You did the cover art?” She sounds utterly delighted.

“I did.” He glances over at the stack of books - he’s less than happy with what he painted. It’s derivative, cliched - _draw me a woman slaying a dragon_ , and so he had. Certainly, he’s stylized it in a way that makes the cover art stand out from a sea of similar fantasy-themed stories, but he cannot see why it would elicit such a response. “And you provided...historical _accuracy_.”

He is doubtful of the factuality of any of Varric’s books, regardless as to whether or not the man consulted someone.

His sarcasm is, of course, not lost on anyone.

“Now, now, Chuckles. I’ll have you know that I made sure to keep everything as close to what is _historically accurate_ as possible.”

“Varric, your wrote a fantasy romance about the last Inquisitor,” Cassandra says, and she seems thoroughly unimpressed. “While it is certainly... _enjoyable_ to read, it is far from historically accurate.”

Lavellan laughs. She seems to be not at all thrown by his general demeanour, despite how she could have easily taken offense at any of the things he has said. “Not all good stories are historically accurate,” she says. She switches her drink back to her right hand and takes a sip. “Most of our records of the final Inquisition have been expunged. It makes it difficult to write anything that is _not_ primarily fabrication. It is not unlike how the ancient elvhen histories were changed after the fall of Arlathan - great upheavals can turn fact into story into myth. I think Varric has created a very _romantic_ story about a time period we have little concrete fact left from.”

Something about the way she speaks - or perhaps it is how she holds herself, or perhaps it is simply something unknowable that can merely be felt - makes Solas’ stomach feel as though it is tilting. His heart still beats an anxious patter in his chest.

“You find something _romantic_ about the intentional degradation of actual events?” His voice comes out more harshly than he intended; there is something offputting about her that he cannot place. He finds that, at the same time, he wishes to speak to her as well as to be nowhere near her.

His chest hurts.

“I find the way that stories change over time to be something exceedingly fascinating,” Lavellan says. She does not appear offput by the harshness of his voice, though Cassandra is frowning at him. “That is my primary interest in history - knowing the truth and comparing it to the fiction that has come from it over centuries. Varric’s work is a derivation of an old story, and I can say from having worked with him that he has put a delightful spin upon the event. After all, it is not as though we truly know the particulars of the last Inquisitor; who’s to say that Varric’s take is out of the realm of plausibility?”

Solas presses his lips together. “Perhaps I will have to read his book and decide if there’s any truth in the tale he tells.”

Lavellan’s mouth is pulled into a smile. There’s something about her expression that makes him exceedingly sad, and he can find no rational source for that feeling. “Perhaps you should.”

“It was a mistake introducing them,” Varric says rather mournfully. Cassandra makes a sound that seems half a laugh, half a growl.

“I will remind you that it was _your_ idea.”

***

It is far too late by the time he returns home; he is tired, in the weary sort of way that someone who does not sleep much often is. He feels particularly wrung out from the evening, like every limb is heavy with fatigue.

He stubs his toe on his easel as he tries to cross the living room without turning on the lights. The half finished painting begins to tip off its perch, but he catches it, steadies it before it can fall.

Solas feels so very off balance himself.

It has been hours now, but he imagines that his palm still burns from when he shook hands with Lavellan. He presses his left thumb into the juncture between his thumb and forefinger as he manages to cross the room and reach the stairs. His skin seems to itch.

 _Lavellan_. There’s something oddly familiar about the name. It’s an old dalish name, he thinks. Very old, and he cannot immediately remember where he’s heard it before. He _knows_ that he knows it, that it is tucked away into some corner of his mind, but the specifics of it elude him.

He should try to sleep, but his mind feels very awake, and he knows that no matter how tired the rest of him is, if he cannot quiet his thoughts he will be awake the entire night. So he takes off his shoes and pulls on a sweater and selects a volume from his bookshelf before curling up on his bed. Dalish lore from before the cataclysm; it is hardly an exhaustive book, but he finds it one of the least objectionable.

Where does he know the name Lavellan from?

As he leafs through the book, he contemplates the familiarity he felt upon meeting her. It was a strange sort of dichotomy, equal senses of familiarity and distrust, of intrigue and wanting to be far away. For someone who, for all intents and purposes, seemed perfectly kind and harmless, there was something deeply unsettling about her.

And something deeply, _deeply_ familiar.

His heart turns over in his chest; too much caffeine that day, he wagers. He is tired and the words of the book blur, but when he closes his eyes he cannot sleep. Not fully; he dozes on and off throughout the night, waking in fits and starts.

He cannot remember the last time he slept through the entirety of a night, and though he can never remember what it is he dreams of, he always wakes with a deep sense of unease.

Morning makes his head hurt; there is an ache in his neck from falling asleep in an odd position. The book lies open beside him; he has not found his answer within it


	2. Chapter 2

 On thursday, Cole draws rabbits.

“You have a very good technique,” Solas says, looking at the sketch drawn in charcoal. There are smudges along the side of Cole’s hand from where it brushes the paper as he works. “You have a good eye for reflective light; however, we are not drawing rabbit today.”

There are cans and bricks stacked upon the center display; the other students work methodically on shape and contrast.

“The rabbits wanted to be drawn,” Cole says. The front of his hair is too long and flops into his eyes.

“Please do the assignment for the day, Cole,” Solas says, and then turns to the next student.

Behind him, Cole turns to a new sheet of paper and begins to draw wolves.

***

He doesn’t realize that she is a professor at the college until two weeks later. He receives a garbled text from Dorian, made up entirely of symbols. He sighs, types back a reply, and flips his phone closed to wait.

_[Dorian] 10:24: Do you_

_[Dorian] 10:24: now?_

_[Solas] 10:25: Your texts are incomprehensible. If you are using those small faces, stop._

_[Dorian]: 10:26: Your phone is a relic_

_[Dorian] 10:26: I’m going to take you shopping for a new one. It will be a delight to see you struggle with modern technology._

_[Dorian] 10:27: btw if you can drag yourself away from your very important duties, we’re having lunch at the Haven Cafe and you’re joining us_

_[Solas] 10:30: Who is we?_

_[Dorian] 10:35: Lunch_

_[Dorian] 10:35: 11:30_

_[Dorian] 10:35: Haven Cafe_

_[Solas] 10:41: I would be most appreciative if you would tell me who we are having lunch with_

_[Solas] 10:53: Dorian, I know that you have seen that text as you are rarely without your phone. Who are we having lunch with?_

_[Dorian] 11:15: 15 minutes, Solas!_

Haven Cafe is a short walk off campus; it takes Solas the full fifteen minutes to get there, as he gets waylaid by one of his second year students on the way. He is not too concerned about being late; he often is when it comes to lunch out with Dorian.

The cafe is a small, quiet affair, done up with contemporarily rustic furniture and colors in yellows and greens and white. It is very cute, for lack of a better word.

There are sunbursts painted upon the walls.

He finds Dorian seated near the back by a window; he appears to be deep in conversation and does not notice Solas’ approach. His companion has their back to him, and it takes Solas a moment to realize who they are, but when he does his heart gives that peculiar jolt within his chest and a white hot flash of something passes through him. Anxiety, perhaps. Apprehension. Something else, like a choked knot in his chest, in his throat.

Her hair is down. It curls and snaps around her shoulder, coarse and dark.

“Solas!” Dorian finally sees him; he smiles brightly and waves to him. “Just the man we were waiting for! Come along, have a seat! We haven’t ordered yet.”

Lavellan turned to look at him. The light filtering in through the window cuts a pattern of branches along her cheek, illumination upon her dark skin.

“Hello there, stranger!” she says brightly. The light changes, and the branching pattern upon her skin disappears. “We were wondering when you were going to show up.”

“He’s always busy. Practically _lives_ in the art studio,” Dorian says as Solas pulls out a chair and sits down. “Not that I can judge _too_ harshly. Come midterms, I will be living in the chemistry lab, trying to keep freshmen from accidentally melting all the lab equipment.”

“I suppose I will just live in my office, grading papers,” Lavellan says. The waitress comes by and brings a glass of ice water for Solas; the other two already have drinks. He asks for coffee as well. “No lab or studio component for history professors!”

 _This_ draws his attention. “You are a history professor?” he asks her, and the smile she gives him makes him believe that he should understand some private joke. “ _Here?”_

“She was just hired this semester. _Really_ , Solas, no one expects you to take an interest in any department outside of your own, but would it have killed you to attend the staff barbecue before the semester started?” It is a good thing that Solas is used to Dorian’s good natured jabs by now.

“Quite possibly,” he says, though in truth he had simply forgotten the day it had fallen on. “How are you liking the university, Lavellan?”

She tips her head to the side as though in thought. “It’s a nice change.” She picks up her water but does not drink; she runs the thumb of her right hand over the raised glass letters of the mason jars they use for glasses, smoothing condensation away. “I wasn’t entirely certain what to expect, but most everyone has been very welcoming. It’s a bit like coming home, in a way.”

He raises an eyebrow; it’s a curious sentiment. “Where did you teach before this?”

“The University of Orlais,” she says. Dorian gives Solas a look that seems to say _see? Impressive_.

“And what did you do that they let you go?” Solas asks, and Dorian’s face falls in that manner it does whenever Solas says something that most consider insulting.

“I can’t take him anywhere,” Dorian tells Lavellan mournfully. “You see what I have to put up with? I try to be nice and get him out of the art studio which reeks of turpentine and _this_ is what he does.”

“It’s really quite all right,” Lavellan says, and it is a bit of a surprise that she does not appear the least bit insulted. It’s possible that his comment went right over her head - it happens quite often when he speaks. “I wasn’t let go; I simply needed a change of pace. The University of Orlais may be the most prestigious university in southern Thedas, but prestige does not always equal a good fit. Besides, I prefer the mountains.”

“There must have been a reason you chose here, aside from the mountains,” Solas says. He feels a headache coming in at the front of his skull.

“ _Well_.” Her right hand fiddles with the napkin; she seems to be somewhat restless, or perhaps she simply fidgets often in general. “That’s a long story. _Very_ long. Maybe I’ll tell you the whole thing someday. But the short version is that a mutual friend of myself and Dorian suggested I apply here when one of the history professor’s retired.”

“As I recall, Felix emailed you the instant the position became available.”

Lavellan smiles before lifting the mason jar glass to her lips once more. She leaves an imprint of deep purple lipstick against the rim. “Felix has excellent taste - and timing,” she says.

“That he does.”

Solas dimly recalls the name _Felix_. A friend of Dorian’s - a brilliant physicist, if he remembers correctly.

The waitress comes back with his coffee and he fills it with sugar and cream to disguise the taste. As he sips at it, he realizes Lavellan has been watching him. His eyebrows rise again.

“You like coffee?” An innocuous question, but there is something odd about her phrasing. As though she is honestly, truly surprised to see him drinking it.

“It is vastly preferable to tea,” he replies, and she gives a startled laugh. It a sudden sound, seemingly too loud in the quiet cafe.

“He _hates_ tea,” Dorian says in a stage whisper. She presses the back of her right hand to her mouth, suppressing her laughter.

Something strange twists in his chest. The coffee is still too bitter upon his tongue; he adds more sugar.

  


***

She asks him if he has started reading Varric’s book yet. He tells her no, he has not yet had time, and she gives a dramatic sigh as though he has dashed all her hopes and dreams.

“Is it truly so important that I read this book?” he asks her and her dramatic sigh turns to a soft laugh.

“I would have thought that you would have liked to know what your name was associated with, given that it _is_ your art upon the cover,” she tells him between mouthfuls of soup.

“Varric writes political thrillers and sordid romances,” Solas states, and Lavellan pauses with her spoon partway to her mouth. “This newest will be no more than a fanciful fabrication. Despite your contributions, there will be little by way of actual historical fact contained within. If his guesses at the origin and name of the last Inquisitor are in any way accurate or close to accurate, I will be highly surprised.”

Lavellan sets her spoon down; she folds her hands upon the table. There are silver vines - no, branches - etched upon her left hand.

“And do you know the name of the last Inquisitor?” she asks him, very seriously. Beside her, Dorian looks up briefly from his phone.

There is a name upon Solas’ tongue; he feels as though he knows this. A word that builds within his mouth, rattles against his teeth, tries to come forth.

Perhaps only a second passes, but he does not say anything. He must look a fool, lips parted, voiceless, as she looks at him expectantly.

“I do not,” he admits, and she releases a breath. Her shoulders fall slightly, and she looks down at her soup with a small, private smile.

“I suppose you wouldn’t,” she says then, quietly. She unlaces her fingers and picks back up her spoon, though she does not continue to eat. “It’s not something anyone from this age would know. Who the last Inquisitor truly was has been erased far worse than the Inquisitor before her. You won’t find her name in any history book.”

“And do you know it?”

She laughs; there is a smile upon her mouth.

She does not answer him.

  


***

  


There is a text on his phone that he has not replied to. From Dorian, of course.

_You could try to be pleasant. It works wonders, though she does seem to find your particular brand of grump amusing._

_Amusing_ , he thinks. The word sticks in his mind; it rankles and he is not certain why.

Varric’s book sits upon his coffee table, the name _V.T. Bartrand_ in large letters upon the cover. He doesn’t write under his real name, not when his parents named him after the greatest dwarven writer of all time.

For a moment, he contemplates it. Thinks about picking up the book, reading what his friend has written, blatant inaccuracies and all.

He doesn’t.

  


***

They run into each other between classes on campus - quite literally run into each other. Solas is staring at the small screen of his ancient flip phone, trying to decipher another garbled text from Dorian, and thus is marginally less aware of his surroundings than normal. It’s an off hour, less students hurrying back and forth than normal, and so when he walks directly into someone he is surprised.

They are _both_ surprised, as it turns out, Lavellan also absorbed in her own much newer, sleeker phone. Which just so happens to slip from her left hand as they knock into one another. It tumbles into the grass.

Solas’ phone falls as well. It hits the brick of the path with an unpleasant crack and the battery pops out instantly.

“ _Fenedhis!_ ” Lavellan swears loudly, rocking back onto her heels from the impact of their collision. She stumbles more than he thinks appropriate, until he realizes she is wearing bright red shoes with slender heels and the left one has sunk two inches into the grass. She is off balance and, fearing that she might twist her ankle if she falls, Solas reaches out and catches her by her wrist. His fingers close around the engraved metal of her arm.

“Wait, wait, don’t pull! Hold on -” She sets her right hand on his shoulder as she slips her foot out of the bright red heel. She’s wearing nylons which create shadows of flowers over her brown skin.

The heat of her hand seems to burn right through the rough knit sweater he wears.

“I apologize,” he says as she tips about on her remaining heel, trying balance. “I was not watching where I was going.”

“Neither was I,” she says, and she grimaces and slips off the second heel. Content that she is not about to fall over, she looks up at him.

Her hand is still on his shoulder. His fingers are still around her wrist.

Her eyes go very wide. They are very brown, but the sunlight turns them to gold.

She drops her hand. He lets go of her wrist. The heat from her palm seems to linger on his shoulder.

“Sorry,” she says as she bends over to pull her heel out of the lawn. A thin layer of dirt clings to the stiletto and she flicks at it with a finger to try to dislodge it. “Seriously, I wasn’t looking where I was going. They always tell you the dangers of walking while texting. I should probably stop ignoring them.” She scoops her phone up from the grass and wipes it on her skirt before she places her shoes firmly onto the brick path and slips her feet back in.

Solas drops into a crouch, picking up the scattered pieces of his phone. It was cited as a fairly indestructible phone when he bought it some seven years back, but dropping it tended to dislodge the back cover and battery. He finds the battery, but the back plate is missing.

“Here,” Lavellan says, holding it out to him. He takes it, looking up at her. Her lips are as red as her heels.

She has a very pretty smile, he thinks.

He replaces the battery and clicks the back into place before turning over the phone. It’s then that it’s his turn to swear.

“ _Fenedhis lasa_ ,” he says under his breath. His mouth presses into a thin line.

“Oh no.” Lavellan peers at his phone and the spiderweb cracks that now cover the small screen. “Will it still work?”

“With luck…” He holds down the power key. It’s an old phone and takes a bit to turn on. And it _does_ turn on, only half the screen is now blacked out, as though ink has spread beneath the screen. “It was supposed to be able to handle falls like that.”

Lavellan stares at his phone with a face that might be half amused, half horrified. “Well, _yes_. When it was _new_. How _old_ is this? This is like...a decade old!”

“I will have you know I bought it new seven years ago,” he says, feeling somewhat affronted that she is laughing at his phone. “But it still turns on, so I don’t believe I will need to replace it quite yet.”

The look on her face is _quite_ comical; it rivals the faces Dorian makes whenever the subject of his phone and its antiquity is brought up.

“Solas, I know you haven’t known me long, but you can’t even read the screen anymore, and so I feel compelled to tell you that it _might_ be time to replace that phone.”

“I do not need the screen to be able to place calls.”

“What, so you can remember every number in your contacts? Do you even know if it will still make calls? Or tell you about incoming ones?”

He doesn’t. It could very well be that it won’t. He’d prefer if it did; he does not feel quite ready to give up on his nearly a decade old phone, simply because the screen has decided to crack and stop working.

“If you tell me your number, I will test if it still functions,” he says. Lavellan blinks at him, as though this has caught her offguard.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if you gave _me_ _your_ number and I call you?” She positions her phone in her left hand, swiping the screen with her right as though she’s ready to input in his number. But then she laughs slightly and rattles off her own; he types it onto the worn keypad of his phone.

A moment later, her phone emits a cheery little song. She switches her phone between hands, holding it up to her ear.

“Why hello, this is Lavellan,” she says. She winks at him. “You might want to see if you can still _hear_ me through that relic.”

“I assure you, I can hear you just fine,” he says as he places his phone against his own ear. “You see? My phone works well enough.”

“You _might_ want to test the reverse. Here, let me call _you_.” Her finger taps her screen, and a few moments later she’s squinting at his phone as though expecting something.

Nothing.

“You really might want to replace your phone,” she tells him with a smile as she slips her phone into her bag. “ _Really_. Sometimes, it’s not worth holding onto something from the past just because it’s what you’re used to.”

“I will take that into consideration,” he tells her. “Perhaps it is time to let go.”

She blinks at him, again, in that wide-eyed, almost confused way. As though she expected something different from him.

He barely knows her; she barely knows him.

Perhaps he is simply misreading her expression.


	3. Chapter 3

 Someone dying on a riverbank.

There is mud between his toes. Cold and clammy - his fingers are cold as well. _Everything_ is cold, except for a white-hot twisting in his chest and his cheeks, an anger devastating in its intensity.

Green eyes, bright and gleaming, and words that he cannot hear. He crouches in the mud, reaching out. Then there is ash - the wind catches it, pulls it away. It fills his lungs, caustic and biting.

Grief and anger choke him. Cold mud beneath his feet; he rises. His fingers are ice.

Three insignificant flickers of life - worthless, pointless, no more than figments of his imagination. Not _real_ , but they have still killed - they are responsible -

Fury and hate, palpable on his tongue. He will _kill_ them, he -

“ _Solas_.”

A single word that cuts through everything, stops him in his tracks, stops his heart in his chest. Such a simple word, but it feels -

 _Real_.

He wakes with a start, instantly alert, as though his name has been spoken by someone beside him, but there is no one there. The room is empty and dark, his only companions the canvas upon its easel and the bookshelves.

He has fallen asleep upon the couch; one arm dangles over the cushions, fingers brushing the ground.

A nightmare, he thinks, for the way that his heart still pounds and the vivid emotions that linger. He feels winded, wrung out, the fragments of the dream lingering. Clinging.

He checks the time. The still-working top display on his phone reads _4:13_. It also tells him that he has ten unread text messages.

Flipping the phone open finds only the cracked, blackened screen. He sighs in irritation, closing it and setting it back on the end table. He turns onto his side, face turned towards the back of the couch, and shuts his eyes. Fifteen more minutes of sleep - if he can somehow get that, he will be content.

But his mind races; sleep does not come. The echo of his name rings in his ears; he wonders why the voice who says it sounds so familiar.

  


***

He researches phones between classes. Everything these days is slim, all metal and glass, things easily broken and far too overpriced. He looks at data plans and clicks his tongue and furrows his brow.

It’s money, money, and more money - he’ll be locked into a new contract, with a new, flimsy phone. It will be nothing like his old one, nothing like what his is familiar with.

Privately, he mourns the loss of his old phone. It makes sad buzzing noises where it sits on his desk, but he can’t see any of the texts that come through.

It had been a good phone. He will miss it.

He has a studio block at five, a painting class that he only marginally supervises. It’s all upperclassmen working on projects, and he wanders around the art cubicles a few times, observing and offering suggestion.

One of his students - a junior by the name of Sera, who’d taken a one hundred level drawing course from him her freshman year to fulfill a requirement but had kept on taking courses each semester- spills paint all over the floor of her art cubicle. She’s got a flair for mixed media, and seems happier now that she’s no longer stuck with the basics. Her pieces are wild amalgamations of color and texture. Her newest one looks like she’s taken several magazines and ripped out pages, adhering crumpled up advertisements onto her canvas and splattering them with paint.

“It’s a statement,” she tells him. She’s got red paint all through her hair. “Friggin’ ads and their shitty messages. See? They distort people, I distort them _back_.”

“Please don’t set this one on fire,” Solas says. She looks at him like he’s mad, but he knows she’s the one who set off the sprinkler system last semester.

***

By the evening, he can barely remember the particulars of the dream, save for the way his name had cut through the entirety of it.

 _Solas_.

***

He has been teaching at the university for a long time.

When he had started out, he hadn’t intended to become an art professor. When he had been eighteen, on his way to college, his things boxed up and stuffed into a beat-up station wagon that barely made the trip across the country, he had been planning to become a scientist. The sense of wonder in the natural world seemed the closest thing to magic that he could imagine, and there was something infinitely appealing in that thought.

Somewhere between his freshman and sophomore year, that thought had changed. He’d taken an art course as an elective his very first semester, and continued taking them each year. Solas had been then, as he was now, an exceedingly stubborn person.

He remembers how Vivienne had advised him against majoring in both art and science. He’d told he appreciated her advice, but that he could do very well on his own, thank you very much.

She’d reminded him about the time he accidentally set his sweater on fire in chem lab.

In the years after finishing his first degrees, one thing had lead to another and he had found himself teaching art. And now, years later, here he is, head of the department.

He’s still not entirely certain this is the trajectory he wanted for his life. Most days, he is content. He teaches something that he loves, he has his own space to paint when he is away from home, and he can get by in life financially. And yet sometimes he feels as though there is something missing. Some oddly shaped piece of _something_ that should be there, but isn’t.

Some days, he wonders if he should have gone on to get a doctorate in a biological science, if his choice to pursue art had been a mistake. Other days, he is fairly certain that it wouldn’t have made that odd feeling of missing _something_ go away.

***

He thinks of green eyes and ash, and the way his name sounds when spoken by an unknown tongue.

His heart aches.

***

He doesn’t have time to purchase a new phone until the weekend; he’s not entirely certain how many calls or texts he misses in the interim, though he’s fairly sure that is not many. It’s unlikely that any will be important, after all, and those who need him for work-related reasons know his campus contact information.

He spends two hours grumpily asking questions about phones from an equally grumpy salesperson who’s name tag identifies him as Adan. No, he doesn’t need a fancy phone. No, he could care less about apps. Is a data plan _absolutely_ necessary? Why can’t he just get a good, time-tested flip phone - oh, they don’t make them anymore?

He makes an offhand mention that he’s an artist. Adan suggests an expensive phone that comes with a stylus; he can purchase an app to sketch on the tiny glass surface. Solas scoffs; digital media is just a pale mimicry of traditional.

He ends up buying that phone anyway. And a case that’s _supposed_ to keep it from breaking if he drops it.

It turns out that his old phone is _too_ old to transfer any data - he keeps his own number, but that’s it. No contacts, just a blank, clean phone. Sleek glass with no buttons.

It’s so very different from what he’s used to.

He ends up in a small diner in downtown Haven for lunch, where he gets a rather disappointing sandwich that he only half finishes, and he uses one of the outlets there to charge up the phone. It comes alive surprisingly fast - no waiting hours like his old one had when he first took it out of the box. It’s a bright, cheery screen that greets him.

He glares at the phone like it’s everything that’s wrong with the world, then goes about learning the new interface.

“Well, well, this _is_ a surprise. My dear, I never thought to see you with a phone that wasn’t _horrifically_ out of date.”

He glances up to see none other than Vivienne. She looks perfectly polished, as always, her skirt and suit jacket expertly tailored and likely more expensive than Solas’ entire wardrobe. There is silver at her throat and her ears. Her hair is slightly longer than the last time he saw her, with elegant twists along her scalp that gathered at the back of her head.

“Hello, Vivienne,” he says as she takes a seat across from him. “Still enjoying your work with a morally corrupt company?”

“Oh, yes,” she says, not rising to his bait. “They’ve promoted me again. It does feel nice to have a _successful_ career.”

“Ah, yes. And soon you will be CEO of Montsimmard Pharmaceuticals. A _very_ glamourous position.”

“I am glad we agree on that.” A waitress brings her a cup of tea and several small sandwiches that look more appetizing than what he ordered. “Now, Solas, _darling_. I’m terribly intrigued as to why you’re out of your studio and holding a phone that _doesn’t_ look like it should be in a museum.”

“I thought it high time for an upgrade,” he says, and Vivienne gives a small trill of laughter that tells him she absolutely _does not_ believe him.

“My dear, the day you willingly buy a new piece of technology is the day I’ll believe you own something that’s more respectable than a sweater. And _this_ -” She reaches out and takes the phone from him. Her perfectly manicured eyebrows arch upwards in surprise. “Oh _my_. You actually spent _money_. I’m honestly surprised!” She taps her fingers upon the screen with the deftness of someone who’s used a smart phone on a regular basis, then passes it back to him. “ _There_. My number, since I know you, and you’ll simply believe you have it memorized and never actually text me.”

“What little faith you have in me. I have a _very_ good memory.”

“I’m sure you do. Nevertheless, it _never_ hurts to let an old friend know that they should, perhaps, actually contact someone more than once every six months.” Vivienne sips at her tea; steam curls up in the air before her. “I do believe the last time we actually talked was in May. How _did_ that entire mess with the student evaluations go?”

“It was resolved,” he says curtly. Vivienne presses her lips together; she looks skeptical.

“Solas, darling, one of these days you’re going to have to pay attention to the sort of feedback your students are giving.” She sets her tea down and delicately blots at her lips with a napkin. “You may have tenure, but one of these days they’re going to get tired of you, and then where will you be?”

“Concern for me? I am deeply surprised.” He picks at the disappointing sandwich on its plate; “You always did think I should have given up art.”

Vivienne sighs. “I always thought it was an exceedingly poor career choice. You were a fine scientist, Solas, even _I_ will admit that. But you’ve done surprisingly well for yourself, and it would give me absolutely _no_ pleasure to see you fired.”

“That’s remarkably charitable of you to say, Vivienne,” he tells her, and she gives a slow smile and a laugh.

“Oh, hush. I can appreciate talent where it is. Now tell me -” There is a soft buzzing sound and a brief look of exasperation crosses her face. She pulls her phone from her purse; her lips press together as she types something onto the screen.

“Is something the matter?” he asks as a crease grows between her brows. She finishes typing and slips her phone back into her bag, carefully rearranging her features into an artfully calm expression.

“It appears that my co-workers are simply _lost_ without me. I do hate to cut this short, but I really must be off.” She picks up her tea in it’s disposable cup, but the small sandwiches that she’s only eaten a few of she pushes towards him. “Here. Might as well not let these go to waste.”

He would protest, but she’s already looping her purse over her shoulder and making ready to leave.

“A pleasure to see you, as always, Vivienne,” he says, and there’s only a touch of sarcasm there. He’s known her for a very long time, and they have fallen into a general rhythm of needling each other whenever they see one another.

“And you, my dear.” She checks her phone one more time, then glances at him once more. Her eyebrows rise again. “And Solas? You might want to buy a new sweater. This one has _holes_.”

She sounds so terribly affronted that he cannot help but chuckle.

“I am an art professor,” he reminds her, as though she needed reminding. “It is of no matter if my sweaters have holes or not.”

***

He ends up taking the small sandwiches home in a box, even though he knows they will likely sit in his refrigerator, forgotten. He does eat part of one; they _are_ less disappointing than what he had ordered.

The new phone starts to make chiming noises on the way back to campus; it’s an overly cheery default sound that sets his teeth on edge, and he makes a note to change it as soon as he can figure out how to navigate all the various menus.

When he checks the phone he finds a slew of text messages from an unknown number.

_[Unknown] 12:45: I’ll have you know that the easiest way to assure I keep bothering you is to ignore me_

_[Unknown] 12:46: I know you get wrapped up in your *projects* and your *art* but honestly do spare some time for us mere mortals_

_[Unknown] 12:46: How am I supposed to know if I’m badgering you just the right amount if you never answer your phone?_

Solas knows who it is instantly. There is only one person who texts him often enough to notice if he was ignoring them.

He taps the screen; it’s different, all newfangled technology that he’d have preferred to avoid, but it’s not too hard to figure out.

_[Solas] 12:50: I am sorry, who is this? My phone has met with an unfortunate accident and had to be replaced._

_[Unknown] 12:50: YOU GOT A NEW PHONE_

_[Unknown] 12:50: FINALLY_

_[Unknown] 12:50: and it only took me *how* many years to convince you?_

_[Unknown] 12:51: you do know what this means, of course_

_[Solas] 12:52: I am afraid to ask._

_[Unknown] 12:53: [a string of emojis]_

_[Solas] 12:54: What are those supposed to be? Is that some sort of hand icon? And a...tennis ball? Or an egg? This is the most nonsensical text you have ever sent me._

_[Unknown] 12:55: [more emojis]_

_[Solas] 12:56: If you are attempting to tell me something use words. This is the most ridiculous way of communicating I have ever seen._

_[Solas] 12:57: Please tell me you haven’t been sending those all the time and thus corrupting all of the prior texts you tried to send me._

_[Unknown] 12:55: I will admit to no such thing, but I will tell you that you are not incorrect in your assumption._

Solas finds that he is smiling as he saves the unknown number under _Dorian_ in his contacts.

***

He does, in fact, have a decently good memory when it comes to many things. He remembers, for instance, the number for the art building, as well as that for main campus. He remembers Varric’s phone number, and Cassandra’s.

He adds them all into the new phone.

But there’s another number that he thinks he remembers; he’s heard it recently enough, and it’s stuck in his mind along with the image of red heels stuck inches deep in the lawn.

He hesitates, but then he types it into the phone and labels it _Lavellan_. But he adds a question mark next to it, uncertain if he’s remembered it properly.

It’s not as though he’ll contact her, he thinks. There’s no reason to, after all.  


	4. Chapter 4

 There is a rift in the sky, a tear in reality. Everything is wrong, everything has _gone_ wrong. Perfect plans that had turned imperfect, flaws and free will unaccounted for. These facsimiles of life about him, wearing the faces of people, they thwart him, they rend his plans to the ground.

The sky is torn, and yet he can do nothing to control it. The world cannot burn in an orderly fashion, it cannot be remade. Chaos, but none that has been expertly fashioned. He cannot use this.

There is a rift in the sky and there is a woman who slumbers within a cell. Dull and lifeless as everything else, empty like a shell, bones slender and delicate as a bird’s, and though he sees the tips of her pointed ears and the white branches carved upon her cheeks he sees not a real creature but a shadow, a corpse, something left behind when all that is magical has been stripped away.

But her hand burns. It is the only thing that is real. It is green and bright and brilliant, and it spits forth magic just as the sky does.

There is a rift in the sky and the woman stands beside him upon a mountain. His hand encircles her wrist; she is solid and her skin burns from the warmth of the magic in her palm. Color bleeds forth from her fingertips.

He cannot see her face. He wonders if she is real.

***

His head feels fuzzy that morning, like cotton wool shoved into his ears, and he feels the familiar feeling of being over tired. He trips over a book on his way to the kitchen, sending it skittering under the sofa.

He cannot remember what it was that he dreamed of the night before, but he feels as though all the cobwebs of it still cling to him.

Coffee. He is in desperate need of coffee, and so he stumbles through the steps of making it in a half-asleep daze.

He dislikes caffeine. He _detests_ tea. He can stand coffee, which is good, as he sometimes thinks that he would not be able to function without it. He loads up whatever it is that he is drinking to keep himself awake with as much cream and sugar as he can, until all the bitter taste is completely covered. Even with that, sometimes he still feels as though he chokes upon it, and he always dislikes how he jitters after drinking it.

Still, he drinks it down and it seems to clear his head at least a little. The dream from the night is already in fragments, but he feels deeply unsettled. The image of blood spilling upon white marble does not leave his mind as he readies himself for the day.

He decides to forego driving and walk to work instead.

Solas lives up on the hill slightly to the north of the campus; theoretically, he can walk to work any time as long as he allows himself enough time in the morning. He owns a shabby old car - which has survived more Haven winters than anyone expected it to - which he uses when the weather is bad or when he needs to go somewhere significantly further away than the college.

His house is an old house or, at least, an old _er_ house. Though relatively small compared to those around it, sitting on rather more land than the new, large houses that had cropped up with new developments over the years. The interior is oddly spacious; he’d knocked down a few of the walls when he first moved in, opening up the bottom floor into something that was less dark and cramped than it had been before. It’s filled with the sort of contained mess one might expect from an intellectual artist who has lived in the same place for over fifteen years. It is neat and clean, in the sense that everything has its proper place, and yet there is such an odd assortment of things that fill the rooms. Books and art supplies, strange relics and fragments of things from the past. He has, at last count, no less than ten tiles from ancient mosaics, though only a few fit together to make any semblance of a larger piece.

There’s still a canvas drying in the front room - but then, there’s almost _always_ a canvas drying somewhere in the house. Mostly oils, sometimes acrylics - he has dabbled in watercolor as well, though he finds he misses the textures that he can use with other media. This one is yet another haphazard mess, some odd figure that seems stretched too tall and too thin. He’d used more red and black painting than he’d planned to on that piece.

He pulls on a worn sweater, holes patched at the elbows, and takes his coffee with him. The morning air is just cool enough to wake him further, but not so much as to chill him.

By the time he arrives on campus, he has nearly forgotten the dream.

***

There is an odd text message on his phone that morning, one from an unknown number yet written in such a way as to indicate the sender is familiar with him. Solas stares at it for several minutes, trying to determine who it might be.

_[Unknown] 9:41 am: Do you have any theories on the changes in elvhen art before and after the creation of the Chantry?_

_[Unknown] 9:44 am: Specifically re: the comparisons between Ghilan’nain and Andraste._

_[Solas] 9:50 am: I am sorry, may I ask who this is?_

_[Unknown] 9:51 am: Oh gosh I hope this isn’t the wrong number._

_[Unknown] 9:51 am: This is Lavellan._

_[Unknown] 9:52 am: Hopefully you’re Solas._

_[Unknown] 9:53 am: If not, I’d still be interested in your opinions on the comparison of Ghilan’nain and Andraste in art and culture._

_[Unknown] 9:55 am: I’ll just be slightly more embarrassed about asking._

Solas checks the contact he had saved for Lavellan - apparently, his memory had been faulty that day. He’d been slightly off on the last four numbers - 0941 rather than 0940. A simple mistake.

He saves the correct number.

_[Solas] 9:57 am: This is Solas._

_[Solas] 9:58 am: Why do you ask?_

_[Solas] 9:58 am: About the comparison?_

_[Lavellan] 10:00 am: Art is not my strong suit, but there is a brief period in post-Chantry formation where elvhen art contains Andrastian influences, to a greater degree than after the fall of the Dales._

_[Lavellan] 10:02 am: But it is a subtle thing._

_[Lavellan] 10:05 am: Inquisitor Ameridan worshipped both Andraste and the Enuvaris in a post-Chantry formation/pre-fall of the Dales setting. Ruins uncovered in 9:42 Dragon reveal statuary and iconography which combine the two. Other similar ruins were discovered later, all dating back to the same time period._

_[Solas] 10:10 am: Ghilan’nain was not a god._

_[Lavellan] 10:11 am: Neither was Andraste._

_[Solas] 10:13 am: You misunderstand. Each figure follows a similar thematic pattern. Mortal to god-like. For those attempting to reconcile two cultures, those similarities might have proved a way do so._

_[Solas] 10:15 am: As for the art itself, you surely refer to the depiction of a woman holding a hart within her hands._

_[Solas] 10:16 am: A common image that was easily changed from an earlier one of Andruil raising Ghilan’nain to godhood._

_[Solas] 10:17 am: Which was likely a corruption of an earlier story._

_[Lavellan] 10:18 am: Most things are. Time changes history._

_[Solas] 10:20 am: This conversations seems a poor one to have over text messages._

_[Lavellan] 10:21 am: True_

_[Lavellan] 10:22 am: How’s your phone? Less broken?_

_[Solas] 10:23 am: It was too broken to salvage. I purchased a new one._

_[Lavellan] 10:24 am: That’s exciting! How are you liking modern technology?_

_[Solas] 10:25 am: Expensive and frivolous. Most of the functions of this phone seem unnecessary._

_[Lavellan] 10:26 am: Change isn’t always a bad thing._

_[Solas] 10:27 am: I did not say it was. Merely that this phone is well beyond what a phone should be._

_[Lavellan] 10:28 am: It’s basically a small computer you can make phone calls on._

_[Lavellan] 10:29 am: So? Do you like it?_

_[Solas] 10:32 am: I do not dislike it._

_[Lavellan] 10:33 am: That’s not really an answer._

_[Solas] 10: 34 am: It will suffice._

***

Thursday is one of those rare, beautiful fall days where it is still warm enough to go outside without a coat and yet the trees are in full autumn colors. Solas has his afternoon class take their sketchbooks and their charcoal and leads them all out of the art building. They go down to the edge lake that borders the campus with instructions to draw scenery from a position of their choice, but not to venture as far as the river.

Cole has a wide brimmed hat on and sits at the very edge of the lake, his toes brushing the water. When Solas checks in on him, he is drawing the ducks. The water upon his paper is a black void, the ducks seemingly cut out from that by the empty white spaces he’s left behind.

The students spread out over the lawn to work on their own projects, Solas sits down upon one of the large outcroppings of rock that decorates the bank and pulls out the new phone. Despite his general misgivings about digital media versus traditional, he cannot help some curiosity, and the phone had come with a stylus.

He sketches idly in an app for some time, finding the surface of the phone too slick and the drag of the stylus nib strange compared to the texture of a paper and charcoal, but it is not as unpleasant as he had thought it might be.

He hears voices from his left after a time, louder than the simple chatter of students, and when he looks up he realizes that he is not the only professor to have decided to hold class outside. There’s a group of students sitting in a circle just up the hill, close enough for him to just overhear their discussion.

It’s their professor’s voice that he hears clearest; it cuts across the grounds with an air of authority. Like someone used to pitching their voice to be heard by large numbers of people.

“It’s important to remember that history is often times what is _remembered_. While we endeavour to understand it as best we can, there is a loss of information that occurs over time, whether due to accidental or deliberate destruction of records, culture, and entire people,” Lavellan says, her words loud and clear. She is wearing green today, seated delicately upon the ground with her back to him. “As an example, a conquering force will often erase the legal and historical documents of a people, disrupting the prior infrastructure. Now, can anyone tell me points we know for certain where significant portions of recorded history were lost? Colette?”

A young elven woman’s hand goes down. “The mage-templar war of 9:39 Dragon,” she says promptly, her orlesian accent apparent. “The destruction of the Circles caused a devastating loss of magical records, as well as Circle history. The destruction of the Dales in the Exalted Age. Um...the destruction of the Vir Dithara.”

“What are the single two greatest losses of knowledge that we know of?” Lavellan asks, and Solas finds himself intrigued despite himself. The students sit in relative silence for a moment, whispering among themselves, before another elven woman raises her hand.

“It’s...I mean, it’s highly contentious,” she says with no little amount of hesitation. “But...well, the first is tied into the destruction of the Vir Dithara. It was the creation of the Veil by the Dread Wolf. The second was...was the complete sealing of the Veil during the latter half of the Dragon Age.”

Lavellan nods slowly; he cannot see her face, but even from where he sits he can see a tension in her shoulders.

“And what specific knowledge was lost?” he hears her ask.

“It...I mean, that’s...that’s the really controversial part, isn’t it?” says the student.

“Go ahead. No one’s going to judge you for your answer.”

The student takes a deep breath. “Well, it...the knowledge lost was magic.”

“Correct,” says Lavellan, and not a single student laughs.

***

Solas holds his classes in three hour studio blocks, and so by the time Lavellan dismisses his class he still has an hour left. He’s checked on all of his own students again, provided suggestions on their sketches, and he is heading back across the lawn when Lavellan catches his eye. She’s speaking quietly with one student, but she smiles softly at him.

His heart turns over in his chest. It’s fairly disconcerting.

He waits until the last of her students have departed and then, after a moment of hesitation, he heads over to her.

“Hello, Solas,” she says, and she is smiling so very brightly at him. “It looks as though we both had the same idea to hold class outside.”

“So we did.” He notices she is not wearing heels today; nothing which can get stuck in the grass and dirt. “I could not help but overhear the discussion.”

Lavellan’s cheeks darken; she bites down upon her bottom lip and looks away, as though what he has said _embarrasses_ her. “Oh, _that_ ,” she says. She looks back to him, and for all the red still dancing along her cheekbones, her eyes are bright. “I suppose you have an opinion on it?”

“You spoke as though the prior existence of magic was an absolute certainty,” he says, watching as her eyes widen. “I find that a curious stance for someone of academic standing to hold.”

Her eyebrows seem to want to rise off her face all together as she stares at him. Her lips open and shut as though she is looking for something to say.

“I would have thought -” she begins, but her words break off; she stops, stalls, starts again. “What do _you_ think? On magic, and the possibility that it once existed in this world?”

He finds himself rather pleased that she has asked him.

“I have read countless tomes upon the subject, things old and decaying,” he tells her. “It would seem a certainty that _something_ once existed which is outside of our current realm of knowledge. There is far too extensive documentation for it to simply be folklore. And yet it seems absurd that something so utterly alien to our current state of being existed.”

“But you admit to the possibility?” she asks him. She shifts her papers to her left arm; her right thumb smoothes the edges of them until they are all perfectly aligned.

“I would be a fool to dismiss it entirely,” he replies. “There is something...appealing, about the idea that there was once more to the world.

He almost expects her to laugh, but she does not. A foolish assumption on his part, given the class discussion he had overheard.

“The idea of magic is a very romantic one,” she says.

“That would not be _quite_ the way I would put it.”

“And how _would_ you put it?”She shifts her papers slightly as they start to slip, pulling her arm closer to her chest. “The concept _is_ a romantic one, when the realities we know of magic after the creation of the Veil are not heavily considered. The idea that a mere mortal might have called lightning to their fingertips? That one could manipulate gravity, or temperature, or converse with spirits? There is something about that which I believe, in a world seemingly absent of magic, appeals to many people. “

“Romantic, yet for the realities,” he muses. It is a curious statement, to be certain. “Most seem to ignore the darker aspects that arose out of the use of magic.”

“We like to forget,” she says quietly, simply. “But yet a thousand years ago, the people living then could not imagine the wonders of what magic was like before the creation of the Veil - and could not comprehend the danger that came with living forever.”

An even more curious statement than before, and he looks at her with renewed interest. She speaks of these things with an intensity that seems to suggest a personal attachment to what she says, none of the clinical detachment which he might have expected a professor speaking of such possibilities might have.

“You fall upon old myth and legend,” he tells her. Her lips press together and scrunch to the side. “One who is immortal, by definition, would live forever, and thus we would see these individuals still.”

“Myth and legend is often based upon fact,” she says, _insists_. “There is some truth within stories of old. Tales of long-lived and immortal elves have always existed in both folklore _and_ recorded history. Consider Zathrien of the Brecilian clan.”

“Purported to have lengthened his life through the binding of his soul with a spirit,” Solas says and Lavellan nods sharply.

“ _Yes_. But if that event - which has more verified documentation than most - was even partially true, then the older myths and legends might have held kernels of truth within them as well.”

“But not _the_ truth,” he says, watching her expression twist further. “And you cannot consider it as such. Much of what we know now is not reliable and has been passed down for so long that it cannot be considered to accurately reflect what was.”

“No, it’s doesn’t,” she says, _agrees_. “Which is one of the things which I try to explore in my upper division courses. The loss of knowledge over time creates necessary changes and inconsistencies in our history. It does not negate the importance of those stories; to deny them is to ignore the intricacies of cultures now lost, even if those stories are metaphorical or exaggerated or _inaccurate_ ways by which those who came after tried to explain things that occurred. There is _absolutely_ worth in those stories, even if they are not _the truth_. And if you’d actually paid attention in class, professor, you would realize that’s _exactly_ what I was talking about today.”

He blinks at her, her words sending him internally reeling. Their argument - and it _is_ an argument, even if their voices have not risen much - came to a halt as he considers what she has said. It is a strange thing, the way she thinks - and _yet_. It makes a certain about of sense; to consider the context of a story, a myth, a legend, and to give it importance without holding it as absolute.

It is _strange_ to him. But not wrong.

“I apologize,” he says, quite genuinely. “Perhaps I was incorrect.”

“People sometimes are,” she tells him, but there is something very soft, something _fond_ in her expression. Again, his heart gives an unsteady lurch, like it’s tripped over itself. He feels, for just a moment, as though he is floundering, as though the ground is uneven beneath his feet.

He finds the feeling _fascinating_.

There is a soft buzzing sound; Lavellan gives a small sigh and shifts her papers carefully once again as she slips her phone out of her pocket with her right hand. Her nose wrinkles and her brow creases with irritation.

“A _meeting_ ,” she says, her shoulders slumping. “And just when the conversation had begun to get interesting.”

“Perhaps we might continue it another time, then?” he asks her, almost before he realizes what he has said. The moment he does, the words are out there - surprise upon her face and surprise within his chest, but he finds that, yes, there is a truth in what he has said. He would very much like to speak with her on such matters again.

“Yes,” she says, and when she smiles there are small spidery lines at the corners of her eyes. “We should.”


	5. Chapter 5

_[Varric] 2:15 pm: Sparkler tells me you still haven’t read my book_

_[Varric] 2:15 pm: That hurts, Chuckles. Right here_

_[Varric] 2:16 pm: You can’t see me, but I’m pointing at my chest hair._

_[Solas] 2:19 pm: I’m sorry to have caused such great offense._

_[Solas] 2:21 pm: If I had known it would hurt so greatly, I would, of course, have read it sooner. If it will ease your obvious pain, I will endeavour to read it soon._

_[Varric] 2:24 pm: Words are cheap, Chuckles. I would know; I sometimes get paid by the word._

_[Solas] 5:16 pm: I have begun reading it._

_[Solas] 5:17 pm: “To the Seeker of my heart, who threatened to throw a table at me if I didn’t thank her in the acknowledgements this time.” The dedication needs work, Varric._

_[Solas] 5:45 pm: Your main character is very blatantly Cassandra._

_[Solas] 6:20 pm: I am no longer surprised she threatened to throw a table at you._

_[Varric] 6:27 pm: Thank’s for the vote of confidence, Chuckles._

_[Solas] 6:40 pm: “The mountains were large and mountainous, the sort of mountains that any dwarf would long to live under, if they were into that sort of thing.” This is dreadful description. You cannot define a word by itself._

_[Varric] 6:42 pm: Are you going to live-text my entire book to me?_

_[Solas] 6:47 pm: Perhaps._

***

It is a crisp fall day when the advance painting students line up their paintings along one side of the room for peer review.

The big, spacious room is slightly too cool - the heating system hasn’t yet fully kicked in, though at least the air conditioner has been turned off for the year. Solas’ nose is rather cold, and he finds himself rather glad that his wardrobe consists primarily of sweaters. His students are fairly bundled up themselves; by this point, they know the oddities of the art building and it’s temperamental heating.

They all line up across from their paintings, sitting on the counter that lines one wall. Solas sits upon a chair that he’s pulled up, legs crossed before him.

“You all know what to do by now,” he tells them, since they _are_ his advanced students and they’ve all done this before. “I want you to tell me what stands out the most to you, both good and bad. Be _constructive_ with your critique.”

“Well, _that_ one looks like a butt,” says Sera loudly, and several other students laugh. The student who painted it goes rather pink; Solas looks at the painting in question and finds that, yes, Sera is actually fairly correct in her assessment. It _does_ look like a butt, if a rather stylized one painted in bright colors.

“ _Constructive_ , Sera,” he reminds her. She scrunches up her mouth and rolls her eyes.

“ _Fine_. It’s a fine looking lady-butt - really stands out to me. But it’s abstract enough that I’m not _one hundred percent_ sure it’s a butt. Which means you’re not shit at abstraction _or_ you’re just shite at butts. Except it’s a _nice_ butt. _There?_ That good _professor?_ ”

“That will do,” he says, and she sticks her tongue out at him. “Anyone else? Remember, we have three hours to do this, and we will be here that entire time if that’s what it takes.”

“It’s quiet,” says a thin, soft voice, and Solas startles slightly as he realizes Cole is there, perched upon the edge of the counter, feet swinging slightly.He has a scarf wrapped so many times around him that the bottom half of his face has disappeared behind it, and he’s pointing at Sera’s painting. “Taught, like an arrow pull back, a bowstring stretched to breaking. Anger that tempered and turned to action; a hidden hand behind a sunburst, not the right or the left but just as important.”

His words sound like music.

“ _What_.” Sera’s head swings around and she stares at Cole. “ _Wow_ , you’re _so weird_. Are you even in this class?”

“Of course he is,” Solas says, but he cannot remember if he is on the class list. He makes a mental note to check it when he gets a chance. “That’s a beautiful description, Cole, but turn it into something constructive.”

“I like the colors,” Cole says softly, simply. “But it needs more red.”

  


***

“I’m having a party, and you’re coming,” Dorian announces when they meet on the path to campus. It’s a misty, chilled morning, and Dorian is wrapped up in well structured wool coat, a black and cream scarf patterned with snakes around his neck.

Solas has always considered his snake scarf to be atrocious. Dorian claims that it is _designer_ and that Solas just doesn’t understand fashion.

“No,” says Solas, and he briefly considers withholding the steaming cup of coffee in his hand - he’s the one to have bought coffee this morning, with sugar and cream and syrup for himself and some undrinkable black sludge for Dorian. But he’s not _that_ awful, and so he passes the cup to him.

“ _Ah_ , good man,” says Dorian as he wraps his fingers around the cup, and then he makes a face as he realizes what Solas has said.. “Wait. Solas, you can’t _not_ come. It’s vitally important that you attend!”

Solas snorts rather inelegantly. “I am certain I cannot be so integral to your plans that I _must_ be there.”

“You never know, maybe I’ve planned an entire party _for_ you.”

Solas frowns at him. “Please tell me you are joking,” he says, finding that he does not like the idea that someone might possibly be throwing a party _for_ him. It would make it so much harder to simply sink into the background and observe, _if_ he attended.

Dorian sighs, as though their friendship is a great burden he must carry. “ _No_ , it _isn’t_. If you must know, Lavellan wanted to throw a small get together, but her place is much too small, so I offered to host. It will just be a few of her friends and a few of my friends, which means you will know at least half the people there and if you want to sulk in the corner while everyone else has fun you’re more than welcome to!”

“I do not sulk, I _observe_. There is a difference. And quite aside from that, I simply do not have the time to indulge in the frivolity of such a thing.”

Dorian shakes his head, like he is utterly astounded by him. “ _Really_. I am certain you have important curmudgeonly artist things to do. Counting your brushes. Re-filling all the turpentine jars. Mixing paints. On a Saturday night.”

“Perhaps I will live it up and _not_ refill the turpentine jars,” he says. Dorian gives him a look like he has gone utterly mad. “If you continue to badger me, then I will refrain from telling you that I will, of course, _consider_ attending. Expect a written reply by friday.”

Dorian sighs. Quite dramatically. “ _Why_ am I friends with you?” he says, and though Solas knows that he is joking, he often wonders why Dorian is friends with him as well.

  


***

  


Wednesdays this semester Solas doesn’t hold any classes. Ostensibly, it’s to allow himself a day for planning classes. In reality, Solas hasn’t changed his lesson plans in over five years, and unless a project is due or he’s having any set of students turn in their portfolios for review, he doesn’t actually _do_ much outside of his classes. He will, of course, still spend most Wednesday’s on or near campus, occasionally supervising independent projects of various students.

There is a small Orlesian cafe in downtown Haven, about fifteen minutes from campus. Nightingale’s has good coffee and even better pastries, and on an off hour in the middle of the week it is a nice, quiet, cozy little place to have lunch and work.

Solas sets himself up in his usual corner, leather messenger bag on the ground at his feet, sketchpad upon the table. He’s working in simple graphite today; it’s the easiest thing to do when away from his stationary workspaces, since so many of the other mediums he works in require drying time, and he’s prefer not to carry a wet canvas around the city. He orders coffee, which comes in an overly large cup and is dusted in cinnamon, and settles down to spend several hours drawing.

He has been struggling to articulate a certain image upon paper as of late, and in truth he is not entirely certain _what_ he means to be drawing. Or, that is to say, he knows he is trying to draw a woman, but he cannot get her features right.

He covers a page in sketches. In one, she looks too young, her features too soft, her hair too dark. In another, she is too old - age and pain and time etched into lines upon her face. Should her ears be pointed or rounded? Should her hair be pulled up into an elaborate style that emulates horns, or should are the horns simply a headdress, or are they real?

He does not know. They all feel wrong; they all feel right.

As he leans back to regard the drawings, in hopes that he will be able to settle upon one which to later paint, the bell at door of Nightingale’s chimes softly as someone enters.

If he had not been looking up already, he might not have noticed her. But he is not completely absorbed in drawing; he is already slightly distracted, and so he does. From the corner of his eye, first, and then he looks at her fully.

She is dressed for the weather today, a structured grey coat that she begins to unbutton as she lingers before the pastry case, regarding the contents carefully. There is a green scarf wound around her neck, and this she loosens as well as she looks up at the menu.

His heart thumps heavily in his chest once, then goes racing away as though it has not a single care that all he wants to do is sit quietly at his corner table and draw.

He looks down at his sketches again. The one where the woman looks oldest suddenly seems the most appropriate of all of them.

When he looks back up once more, Lavellan is leaning upon the counter, chattering away happily with the owner. Leliana had opened Nightingale’s nearly a decade ago, and Solas had known her nearly as long; she seems to talk to Lavellan as though the two were old friends.

Eventually, Lavellan turns away and, as chance might have it, meets his eyes just as he thinks to glance away. They have that moment that two people sometimes have when they accidentally look at one another from across a short distance - there is, of course, a moment of surprise, followed by recognition, followed then by a period of awkwardness.

Or perhaps the awkwardness comes first. Lavellan’s eyes go rather wide, her lips part slightly. And then she smiles, close-lipped once more, an almost sheepish smile as her eyes dart away from his. He glances away, feeling a flush creeping along his cheekbones; he looks down to the sketch upon the paper before him. There are smudges from his hand upon the right side of the page.

There is heat in his cheeks. His chest feels tight.

He scrubs at the smudges with an eraser. When he looks up once more at the sound of a chair scraping across the ground it is to see that Lavellan has taken a seat several tables away, her back to him.

It’s better this way, he thinks, turning back to his sketchbook. Much better that she does not come up to greet him. It is much better that she stay away from him, or that he stay away from her. He cannot be near her, or else she -

And that is where his thoughts come up short. It is not the first time he has felt something like this, the odd feeling that settles in his chest, a bone-deep feeling that he cannot be near her. That something terrible will happen if he is. That she is dangerous to him in some way he cannot define, not at all.

And yet.

 _And yet_.

His heart does a little complicated flip within her chest as he glances at her again, at the slope of her shoulders and the way her dark hair is loose and her ears peek through messy curls. There is the sound of clattering dishes from behind the counter, and she turns her head - the light from outside catches her left ear, turns the fragile point translucent, a flush of warmth upon dark skin. He doesn’t dare blink; his fingers itch to draw the shape.

 _Oh_ , he thinks, and wants to laugh at himself, at his thoughts and the flush upon his cheeks. He is in his mid-forties, no wonder she unsettles him so. He sees her and his heart turns over in his chest in the same irresponsible manner that it had when he was a very young man. When he had no notion of how to speak to a woman or man he found attractive, and had come across as a prideful asshole on the occasions he _did_ try.

Not that, he supposes, he does not often _still_ come across as a prideful asshole. He’s heard as much from both Dorian and Vivienne multiple times.

He makes a decision which, in retrospect, is the sort of innocuous, small decision which has quite unforeseen consequences.

He sets his sketchpad upon the table, picks up his phone, and types out a simple text.

_[Solas] 12:42 pm: If you would like, you are welcome to join me._

He sends it before he can think better of it.

There is a small chirping sound and he sees Lavellan reach for her phone. A moment later, she twists around in her chair, one arm over the back, and stares at him. Her eyes are sparkling, the light from outside cutting across her face in bands. Her lips are painted a warm brown today, nearly the color of her skin.

“You’re _texting_ me,” she says, looking utterly delighted.

“I _have_ texted you before,” he reminds her, though in truth he supposes that _she_ has texted him and he has responded, which might be enough of a difference to matter.

“Yes, but you’re texting me from within the _same room_.” The way she is smiling, he thinks that she is taking far too much joy from this simple fact. “That’s so _modern_ and _impractical_. I’m so proud.”

If he hadn’t already known that she was friends with Dorian, that comment would have caused him to suspect that she was.

“Impractical as it may be, it does not invalidate my offer,” he counters, and Lavellan presses her lips together as though she is attempting to smother a smile.

She is doing a very poor job at it.

He is uncertain what her answer will be, until she slips her phone into her left hand, picks up her bag with her right, and walks over.

“Since you asked me so politely, how can I refuse?” She sets her phone on the table before pulling out the chair and settling down across from him. “I’m glad you caught me before I started in on all the papers I have to grade. It would have been _much_ harder to decide to switch tables if I had twenty five essays spread out before me.”

“What is the essay topic?” he asks, finding himself curious as to what she might assign to her students. Lavellan sets her elbow upon the table, leaning heavily. She sighs.

“Ancient civilizations and their effect upon successive societies,” she says. “ _Everyone_ chose Tevinter. Well, almost everyone.”

“Unsurprising.”

“Truly unsurprising,” she agrees, but she still does not look pleased. “It’s not as though it makes no sense - Tevinter was a truly influential society, particularly as most would have expected it to collapse after the sealing of the Veil. I suppose that is part of the appeal - that, and Archon Calpernia is a fascinating figure to write about, and her actions had very far reaching consequences in determining what would become of Tevinter when there was no longer magic to support the infrastructure. The problem that I have found, so far, is that most of my students are only discussing Tevinter and how it affected the formation of modern society.”

“They have failed to understand that Tevinter, itself, was built upon the bones of an older civilization,” Solas says and she nods, the edges of her mouth turning up into a small smile. “Which, I assume, means that they’ve missed the point of your lectures.”

“Precisely.” Her phone lights up beside her; she swipes at the screen, frowns, but ultimately ignores it. She turns the screen off and folds her hands before her, attention once more upon him. “To be perfectly fair to them, much of what I’ve been teaching is to think more critically about our modern perception of history, and it is hard for some to grasp the nuances of what exactly that means. Or how _long_ our history truly is. They only look at the last thousand years and believe it to be the highlight of nearly ten thousand years of recorded history.”

“If I might wager a guess,” he says, leaning forward as well, his sketchpad forgotten beside him. “Your students have written essays discussing how the scientific revolution within Tevinter arose out of the methods of study leftover from when magic was an integral part of society. And yet they have likely failed to consider the source of many Tevinter techniques, which were of Elvhen origin.”

She’s smiling at him by the time he finishes. There is a little twinge in his chest when he notices this, realizes that she has been listening to him speak, that she appears to _enjoy_ what he has to say. “I should have guessed you would know why I have been so frustrated grading these.”

“It appears as though general opinions upon history haven’t changed as much as I would have liked over the past several decades. It is part of why I did not pursue that field as a career.”

“Well, I was not teaching history several decades ago,” she says, but then something seems to occur to her and her head tips upwards sharply. Her eyes narrow slightly and her brow creases as she stares at him.

“How old _are_ you?” she asks, a little abruptly, a little rudely. He raises an eyebrow.

“I am forty-seven,” he says, declares. Lavellan makes a small noise in her throat.

“ _Forty-seven_. I suppose you’ll always be older than me.”

It is an odd thing to say.

“How old are _you?_ ” he asks in return, because he is curious, because it is a counter to her own question, because he wonders what she was doing at the same time as he was dropping his freshman history courses. She shrugs, picks her cup up, sips at it.

“Thirty-six, give or take.” She taps a nail against the side of her tea cup. “It depends on how you’re counting.”

Eleven years. It’s at once a far greater difference and a much smaller one than he’d anticipated. Though now that she has put an age to her face, he supposes that she does look as though she is in her middle to late thirties. The way her skin settles across bone and the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the slight coarseness that she does not hide beneath foundation.

There are freckles that spatter her nose and her cheeks and her forehead, dark even against her brown skin.

He thinks of flecks of paint upon a canvas.

“Oh, you’ve moved!” The voice is warmly accented, and Leliana comes up to their table, balancing a tray upon one hand. There is a wickedly delighted smile upon her face as she sets down neatly plated pastry and a small salad garnished with walnuts and cranberries before Lavellan, along with a small pot of tea. “And next to Solas, of all people!”

“We’re colleagues,” Lavellan says, before Solas can attempt a response, and Leliana gives a small laugh as she sets the tray against her hip.

“He so rarely has _colleagues_ with him when he comes in here,” she tells her in a stage whisper, a glitter in her eyes as she glances to Solas. “Which is not to say that he is unwelcome; he _is_ our resident artist, after all!”

“If you ever wish me to continue the mural, Leliana, you need let me know,” he says, and Lavellan turns in her seat to look at the painting that covers the back wall of cafe, staring at it as though she missed it when she came in the door.

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathes out, and though he can only see her face in partial profile, he can tell she is smiling.

Something catches beneath his breastbone.

She turns back, blinking rapidly. “I _wondered_.”

It is so quietly spoken that it is almost as though she doesn’t say anything at all.

“It’s _fine_ , Solas,” Leliana assures him. “It’s perfect the way it is. He painted it for me when I first opened,” she tells Lavellan. “Or - it’s a fresco, isn’t it? That’s not _quite_ painting?”

“It is a somewhat different process,” he says, “though admittedly most would not know the difference.”

“Paint mixed with plaster.” Lavellan gives herself a small, yet visible shake before reaching out to pour a cup of tea. The tea pot’s handle is angled to her left; she twists it around until she is able to easily grab it with her right hand. Metal taps against porcelain as she touches her left hand to the lid to keep it from tumbling off. “It’s a very lengthy process. Impressive, even.” Her hand trembles slightly; she sets the tea pot down before her cup is full.

“It was certainly an impressive thing to watch,” Leliana agrees. She glances between the two of them; Solas recalls that she is generally delighted whenever he has someone here with him. Which is a rare thing. “Well, I will let you two get back to your lunch. If you need anything…?”

“We will let you know,” Solas says, and Leliana smiles before retreating back across the near-empty restaurant.

“So.” Lavellan picks up her teacup, steam curling up from it in wisps. “You still do frescos.”

“No,” he says, watching as her head tips up and to the side. There is a very slight furrow between her brows.

“No? But you _did_ paint frescos.”

“I have been known to paint a fresco or two in my lifetime,” he deadpans, and Lavellan gives a delighted snort of laughter, pressing the back of her left hand over her mouth. The sleeve of her shirt gaps slightly; a wolf etched in silver crouches upon the inside of her wrist.

“I’m sorry, don’t mind -” But she is _giggling_ at him, and it takes a moment for her to stop. When she does, she drops her hand back to the table. Black and silver; vines twist around her fingers. “I’m just...it’s a beautiful fresco.”

He glances over her shoulder. Crows and ravens silhouetted against a sunburst, not a single actual nightingale in the entire piece.

Leliana had once told him she’d named all of the birds he’d painted for her. The largest, most detailed is apparently named Baron Plucky.

“If you don’t work in plaster and paint, what is your primary medium?” Lavellan asks him, and he drags his gaze away from the fresco and back to her face. She picks up her teacup and sips gingerly at the too-hot liquid. Her lips leave an imprint behind.

“Oils, primarily. I find them acceptable to work with. Acrylics as well. Both have their own merits, and can achieve an excellent luminosity when used correctly.”

“And pencil, I see,” she says, nodding towards his sketchbook.

“Graphite, yes.”

“ _Graphite_.” She’s smiling again. “Carbon sticks.”

“Accurate, but hardly as precise. Many things can be considered sticks of carbons.”

Lavellan shakes her head slightly, setting her cup down and poking at her salad. “So. Acrylics, oils, and graphite, and once upon a time you created beautiful frescos. Dread Wolf, I’m impressed.”

Such a linguistic oddity, he thinks, that she uses _Dread Wolf_ in place of other expletives. Varric, for instance, might have said _shit_. Sera would have been far more colorful; he’s overheard bits of conversations she’s had with other students in his class. It’s hard not to overhear her sometimes.

“It is only the result of years of practice and study,” he tells her as she is briefly distracted once more by the bright light of her phone. When she looks up again, he says: “And you have seen an inconsequentially small amount of my work to determine if it is or is not impressive.”

“Hmm.” She swallows a mouthful of salad. “I suppose I haven’t seen _much_ of it. That does not mean that what I _have_ seen isn’t impressive. Though I would always like to see more.”

He hesitates for only a moment before he picks up his sketchbook and holds it out to her. She stares at him.

“ _Now?_ ”

“You have expressed a desire to see more of my work. While this is still inadequate, it will give you a more extensive idea of whether or not my work is _impressive_.”

She takes the sketchbook from him only after she dusts her fingers off upon a cloth napkin, just in case. Then she settles back in her chair and begins to look through it.

There is a particular feeling to someone looking through a sketchbook. An apprehension or an excitement along the cheekbones, the delight of showing something created by one’s own hand, the anxiety that they may not appreciate it.

She looks at each page in turn, not quickly passing by any of them. She does not speak; he does not know what she thinks of his work. Occasionally, she pauses, her face creased with some emotion he cannot quite pinpoint. Sadness? Confusion? Longing?

He tries to remember what pieces he has drawn within the pages of the sketchbook, but he cannot see what it is she looks at when she makes those faces.

Eventually, she gets to the most recent drawings and her eyes go very wide.

“ _Oh!_ ” she exclaims, slightly too loudly for the near-empty cafe. “You’ve drawn - that is to say - these are lovely,” she finally settles upon, sliding the sketchbook back across the table to him. The numerous faces all stare back at him.

He taps a finger upon the page. “These remind you of something,” he states. Lavellan’s cheeks darken.

“It’s nothing,” she says, but he holds her gaze until she sighs and gives a small, almost weary laugh. “Mythal. This one looks like Mythal.” She points towards the oldest depiction of the woman, her hair drawn back into its odd, horn-like shapes, a pointed diadem upon her brow. “Like statues of Mythal,” she clarifies, before he can say anything. “These shapes are similar to depictions that show her as something seemingly half humanoid and half draconic.”

Solas stares at his own drawing. His brow furrows.

“A coincidence. I had not planned to draw someone resembling Mythal.”

“It’s….there are similarities. She -” But her phone vibrates on the table, display bright once more, and Lavellan sucks in a sharp breath. She picks it up, places it to her ear. “Now is not a good time,” she says. He hears the tinny sound of a voice, but not the actual words. Indistinct, but masculine. “No. _No_. If -” She pauses; her lips press together into a harsh line. “I understand. Not now. Yes. _Thank you_.”

And then she hangs up.

“ _Work_ ,” she says, sighs, her shoulders dropping as though she has just released a good deal of tension. “Which - well. You know how things can be. I thought I’d have a free afternoon to work on these papers - I _do_ need to get them done by Saturday.”

“Saturday? Ah - Dorian’s party,” he says.

“He told you about it? The one that we are both hosting - _if_ I manage to get done with everything first, or else I’ll be sitting in his kitchen working on grading these essays all night.”

“He did,” Solas says, and Lavellan’s eyes flicker up to his once more.

“ _And?_ ” she prompts, and he is, for a moment, lost for words.

“ _And?_ _I_ will not be sitting in his kitchen, grading papers.”

Lavellan laughs, but she quickly clarifies. “I assume he invited you, and if he did not then I will be _most_ disappointed in him.” She taps her fingertips upon the teacup again. “It’s really less of a _party_ , in the collegiate youth sense of the word, and more of a _gathering_ in the _a small group of friends and acquaintances in one house at the same time_ sort of way. I was hoping you would come.”

He stares at her. There is that peculiar twinge in his chest.

“Why?”

“ _Well_.” She pours the very last of the tea from the teapot; it only fills about a fourth of the cup. There is no steam that curls forth anymore. “The safe answer would be, of course, that you are Dorian’s friend and this _is_ , technically, a jointly hosted party.”

“And the less safe answer?”

Her lips twitch. She hides them behind the teacup. “You assume there is one.”

“You, yourself, suggest there is a second answer,” he points out. She tips her head up; her lips part over white teeth. Another smile.

“The second answer is that I find myself quite fond of our discussions,” she tells him. “I would miss you, were you not around.”

He stares at her.

“I...will think on it,” he says. And then, more softly: “thank you. There are few who would see me enough to miss me.”

Perhaps he imagines it, but he think that her lip trembles even as she keeps a smile upon it.

“Far more than you might imagine,” she tells him, and her teacup hides her lips before he can decide what it is he sees within her smile.

***

He sketches the woman whose hair twists like horns upon canvas. _Mythal_ , he supposes, remembering the comparison that Lavellan made. It is not, all things considered, a terrible comparison.

That night, he dreams of a dragon who swallows up a treacherous sun which threatens to kill the world.

The fire burns her up from within.


	6. Chapter 6

 He contemplates not going.

He truly _does_ consider it, weighing the pros and cons and finding them both rather evenly matched. But in the end he has all his lesson plans written - has had them written for _years_ , quite honestly, and they rarely deviate - and has nothing to grade, no work-related reason to decline.

No one has told him any specifics about what type of party it will be - Lavellan’s description had been less than clear, though it had at least helped to assure him that it would _not_ be the type of party that happened in the off-campus housing for students. So he decides not to overthink it and simply wears a grey sweater that fits slightly better than the others and has no holes or paint stains upon it. No sense in dressing too fancy, and it is utterly expected of him to always wear a sweater.

Play upon expectations; that is something he knows well. People will remember when you meet or break them, but to do what they anticipate allows for other things to slip by unnoticed.

He brings a bottle of wine. Red, slightly pricier than he would generally consider, but he does know how Dorian is about wine. He has _opinions_ on cheap wine, like Solas has _opinions_ on photoshopped art and misremembered history.

Dorian has a house that’s slightly too big for just one person, set just far enough off campus that he can easily get there - but it’s in the opposite direction from Solas’ house, so walking isn’t an option. So he gets in his beat up old station wagon that still runs and drives across town with a bottle of wine resting in the passenger seat.

Now one of the aspects of Haven which Solas had always quite liked is that it was exceptionally easy to quickly pass outside of what looked like the city. The university where he - and Dorian and Lavellan - work is set just far enough from the city center that students can easily walk to it, but far enough out that it is not surrounded by any of the buildings and goings-on that spoke of the city. Dorian’s house is settled upon the edge of what is still regonizable as suburban, yet before the more rural sprawl of the mountains and valleys stretchs away. As Solas drives up, it is to find the wide drive already filled with several other cars, and so he has to park out on the street.

He is careful not to put the wheels of the station wagon up upon the front of Dorian’s lawn.

It is already beginning to grow somewhat dark; the sun not yet sunk behind the mountains, yet nearly finished with its descent in the sky, and while it it dry and clear out it there is the undeniable crisp snap of cold in the air. Solas grabs the bottle of wine from the passenger’s seat and hurries up the drive; he doesn’t lock his car doors as he has found there is little need in this part of Haven, nevermind that there is very little of value in his car. The stereo, likely the most valuable thing, boasts a cassette deck and a radio display that has been dead ever since a fuse blew over a decade back.

All the lights of the bottom floor of Dorian’s house are on and as he nears Solas can hear the sounds of people talking from within. He very neatly raps his knuckles against the door and - when there is no response - presses the doorbell.

It takes perhaps twenty seconds before the door opens and Solas is greeted by one of the largest men that Solas has ever met. He is at _least_ a good foot taller than Solas, and his shoulders nearly fill the doorway. In fact, he has to stoop slightly to keep a great set of horns from scratching the frame.

“Heard we were waiting on one more,” he says in a deep voice. “You must be Solas. Come on in.”

He steps out of the way and Solas slips quickly into the house. He has been here before; he knows the house rules and slips his shoes off quickly, before straightening up to his full height and meeting the other man’s eyes.

“You must be one of Lavellan’s friends,” he says, for he has not known Dorian to typically befriend qunari. The skin around the man’s one good eye crinkles up as he smiles.

“Heard you were smart. Yeah, that’s me. You can call me Bull,” he says, extending a hand towards him. Solas contemplates it for a brief moment before taking it and shaking. Bull’s hand dwarfs his own.

“Solas. As you have apparently already heard.”

“Is that my curmudgeonly, sweater-obsessed friend I hear?” Dorian’s voice comes from the direction of the living room. “Come now, we’ve already started. You’re terribly late!”

“I am perfectly on time,” he says as he drops Bull’s hand and walks into the next room. It is a statement which is rather untrue. He is, in fact, about twenty minutes late.

Dorian is sitting upon his armchair opposite several people who Solas vaguely recalls having met before. He looks up at his arrival. “Oh, you’ve brought more wine! Excellent. We can always do with more wine, though please tell me you’ve put _some_ effort into selecting it this time.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I do have some sense when selecting wine,” he says, perhaps a touch too abruptly, but he holds the wine out. Dorian looks at it, his eyebrows rising rather high upon his forehead in surprise.

“Well. You _do_ , apparently. In the kitchen with that, I think. And then _do_ come back out and _be social!”_ Dorian calls after him, as Solas has already turned away.

Dorian’s kitchen is a decently sized affair, with cabinets made of actual wood instead of particle board covered with some sort of wood-like laminate and countertops all in actual stone. There are several bottles of wine already out on the counter, as well as a bottle of something that looks like rather deadly hard alcohol. The label sports a rather wicked looking dragon.

Also at the counter is Lavellan.

Solas pulls up short when he notices her. It seems, for a moment, impossible _not_ to notice her. As though all the color in the room grows brighter around her, and all he can focus upon is the way her hair has been braided back and elegantly twisted and the way her lips are painted the color of raspberries and wine.

And then he sees what it is that she is doing.

“I see that you were not exaggerating when you said you might well find yourself grading papers in Dorian’s kitchen,” he says, and she startles at the sound of his voice. A soft gasp that catches in her throat, and he sees her jerk backwards so sharply that she nearly unbalances herself from the stool she sits upon.

“ _Fen’harel_. _Please_ don’t sneak up on my.”

He frowns as he steps closer, though he keeps the countertop between them. She seems to be truly startled.

“I apologize. That was not my intent,” he says, and Lavellan takes several deep breathes, visibly stilling the expression upon her face.

“There is no need to apologize” she says, spine straight, all traces of upset wiped away. “I was distracted. But you are here now! Dorian thought you might not come.”

“A reasonable fear. I did not give a clear answer as to whether I would or not.” He sets the wine down; it clinks dully against the stone countertop. Lavellan stares at it, blinking slowly.

“Oh,” she finally says, and then she shakes herself slightly and smiles at him. “I am very glad that you decided to come!” She sweeps the papers before her into a neat pile and replaces them inside a folder. “I should _probably_ stop being antisocial and actually join the party. Would you like a glass of wine? _I_ know I would like one.”

“Certainly,” he says as she hops down from the stool. She is wearing dark pants and a loose white shirt that leaves her arms bare; her normal bright heels are missing.

She is familiar with Dorian’s house; that much is obvious as she easily locates two clean wine glasses in the cupboard. There is a white wine already open; she glances at him for a moment, question in her eyes, and when he nods she pours a measure of it into each glass.

“Here you are. Hopefully it’s good; Dorian insisted it was, but I am not so much a fan of white wines myself.”

“I am certain it will be fine.” He takes the proffered glass and their fingers brush. Just slightly, just the slip of skin against skin as his hand curves around the bell of the wine glass.

It feels, in that single instant, as though an electric current has shot through him; his fingers go quite numb. His arm. His heart. And then it passes, as though it never happened.

Lavellan does not seem to have noticed anything. In the moment where he stands there, little sparks of feeling fluttering back to life upon his skin, she has picked up her own glass and sipped at it. Her lips leave a ring of deep red upon the rim.

She grimaces.

“Dorian lied about the wine,” she says, but she does not put her glass down.

 

***

 

They join the party, or that is to say Lavellan joins the party. She talks and she mingles; she smiles easily and laughs loudly. Her friend, Bull, laughs louder than she does.

Solas, for his part, observes more than he interacts. He takes one of the armchairs in the living room as his own and does little to move from it throughout the evening.

That does not, of course, mean that people do not speak with him.

 

***

 

“So, Chuckles. How far along are you in the book, and has your opinion on it changed even _slightly_?”

Varric sounds curious, not accusatory, but then again he often seems purposefully blaise when speaking with others about his books.

“I am about one quarter of the way through,” he tells him. “The description in this one is a marked improvement over your last crime thriller. However, I am somewhat disappointed by the inaccuracies of the last Inquisitor’s closest allies.”

Varric gives a low laugh. “Chuckles, we know maybe three names of the Inquisitor’s friends, and even less about who they actually _were_. I took a few artistic liberties.”

“ _Artistic liberties_.” Solas makes a scoffing noise in the back of his throat. “You’ve named two as the _Archon_ and the _Arishok_. I believe neither the archon of Tevinter or the Arishok were part of the last Inquisition.”

Varric sighs, rather dramatically. “You’ve no sense of romance. I simply decided to include one of the greatest love stories to come out of that time period. A torrid affair that crossed political boundaries amid two warring countries? My readers love it!”

“I’m fairly certain that _that_ story is inaccurate as well,” Solas says dryly. “The root of that story, I believe, was between a magister and a tal’vashoth.”

“ _Details_ ,” says Varric, and Solas echoes his sigh.

***

“So, Bull, what do you _do?_ ” Dorian asks Lavellan’s friend. Bull is fairly sprawled out on one of the armchairs, his feet resting on the coffee table. His boots are off, but Dorian still looks faintly unhappy at having _feet_ up on his furniture.

“I’m a government spy,” Bull says, so smoothly and easily that he might as well be recounting the weather. “Military special ops, intelligence division. If you want me to be specific.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I’m not certain that’s the sort of thing that’s supposed to be spoken about openly,” remarks Cassandra, and it is readily apparently that no one is entirely certain whether Bull is joking or telling the truth.

“He coaches a competitive hockey team,” Lavellan says, and it rather breaks the tension in the room, particularly when Bull gives a great bark of laughter.

“That I do! The Bull’s Chargers - meanest and best team you’ll ever see on ice.”

This seems to sit well with everyone, the first comment dismissed as though it was no more than a joke. Solas, however, is not so certain that both statements aren’t the truth.

 

***

 

“You look miserable, Solas,” Cassandra says quietly to him later, after he has had thwo glasses of wine and the noise level has risen considerably.

He cannot help but laugh.

“I am not,” he tells her, just as quietly, the conversation just between the two of them. “I simply prefer to listen rather than actively interact. It makes for a far more entertaining evening. Besides, there is enough wine to keep me happy, and the company is not disagreeable.”

Cassandra presses her lips together, but she nods and drops the subject.

And, truly, he is not miserable. He has, despite earlier worries to the contrary, enjoyed himself this evening. He has had just enough wine that he feels relaxed and loose, and he is...content.

Across the room, Lavellan talks with Dorian’s friend - the one with blond hair that Solas has met on occasion. She catches his eye and she smiles at him. A small smile, on that does not show her teeth or part her lips, and yet it is soft and Solas feels his heart trip over itself within his chest.

 

***

 

He has been disrupted from his seat upon the armchair and moved to the couch when Lavellan comes over to him once more.

“Cassandra says that you aren’t bored,” she says, leaning upon the back of the couch. She’s rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and she looks very at ease. “Which is good; I _was_ wondering.”

“I’m afraid I make for a very poor guest if you wish for entertainment.”

“Could I join you?” she asks him, and when he nods she says “here, hold this” and he finds himself holding her drink while she pulls herself over the back of the couch and sits down beside him. Most of her lipstick has worn away over the course of the night, he notices, but there is a dark stain along the inside of her lower lip. Wine, he thinks.

“I switched to red,” she says, taking her glass back from him. “Dorian has _much_ better taste in red wines than he does in white.”

“I often find his taste in things questionable at best,” Solas says, and Lavellan giggles.

“Says the man who wears the most unflattering beige sweaters that I have seen.”

He cannot help but feel affronted.

“They are not _all_ beige,” he says, and she laughs further.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t - I think you look _good_ in beige,” she tells him, and he can honestly not tell if she is making fun of him or not.

“I hardly think that you have come over here to talk about my state of dress.”

“Mmm. No. Not really.” She reclines back against the cushions, left arm over back of the couch, one leg curled beneath the other. “I like talking - well. That is. I like talking. To _you_.” She punctuates the fractured sentence with a slight tip of her head and a smile. “Sorry. I’ve had a bit of wine.”

“There is no need to apologize,” he tells her. “I have as well.”

He shows her his mostly empty wine glass. She stares at it for a moment.

“Too much to drive?”

“Likely.”

She taps her forefinger against her lip, then she sets her glass down and gets up. “Wait here.”

He does not tell her that he has nowhere else to go; she disappears into the kitchen only to reappear a moment later with the very same bottle of wine had brought with him. It is nearly half empty already; she sits back down, refills her glass, and looks to him.

He lets her refill his as well.

“So,” she says, leaning back once more, making herself comfortable. “Tell me something about you that has nothing to do with work.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” he replies. She scrunches up her nose as she narrows her eyes at him.

“I’m sure that’s a lie. But if you don’t want to tell me about yourself, then why don’t you tell me something you know.”

“A story?”

She nods sharply. “A story.”

“I would think that _you_ would prefer to tell _me_ one.” He means simply that he has already noticed that she enjoys speaking of past events, particularly ones phrased as stories or legends, but his tone is sharper than he intends.

She seems barely to notice, or if she does it does not affect her. “I _would_. But I haven’t heard near enough of your stories. Indulge me.”

He feels a small thrill of excitement run up his spine. “And if I have no stories to tell?” he asks her, calm, his face impassive.

Her deep red lips curve over white teeth. “I would hardly believe that you have _no_ stories to tell.”

And he considers it. What sort of story would he like to tell her? What _could_ he tell her? In truth, he is not so certain that he knows myth and legend well enough for this. That is, after all, her area. Yet he there are some which he knows well that she might find of interest, and he finds that he _wants_ to tell her something. It is odd, but there is something now about Lavellan’s company that is...comfortable.

It is strange, that the deep seated feeling that he ought not to be near her has faded somewhat.

He examines the glass of wine she has given him. Takes a sip. Then sets it down upon the coffee table beside hers and leans forward, hands clasped, forearms resting upon his knees.

“I would assume you’ve heard the story of Andruil and the Dread Wolf,” he says, and he wonders at how her eyes go wide.

“I have heard _a_ story of Andruil and the Dread Wolf,” she says, leaning forward, intent. He can guess which version she has heard; he thinks that he has chosen correctly in which story to tell. “Okay, go ahead. Tell me about Andruil and the Dread Wolf.”

He twines his fingers together before him. Where should he begin? He hasn’t told the story in ages. He doesn’t remember where he first heard it, or where he first read it, but he knows the words.

“When the Enuvaris ruled and the People lived in fear, there was a time when Andruil grew weary of all the things of the world. The things she used to hunt brought no challenge or joy, not even the gifts of Ghilan’nain or the People themselves. And so she took to the dark places between the worlds where she hunting things unknowable and horrific.

“Now the Dread Wolf, who had waited and watched the plight of the People beneath terror of Andruil’s bow, saw the Huntress had left him with a great opportunity. In her absence, he went to the People and showed them that they need not live in fear of the Huntress any longer. The Dread Wolf took them away to where she could not find them.”

“This is not the story of Andruil and the Dread Wolf that I know,” Lavellan says. Solas inclines his head; he imagines that it wouldn’t be. It is not a commonly told one, not now. Not anymore.

“Perhaps the second part will be closer to your recollection. As I was saying.” He leans back, stretching slightly. The world feels slightly askew, slightly tilted. Wine, he thinks, and perhaps a touch of fatigue. “When Andruil returned to find those marked as her were gone, she flew into a rage. She thought of who might have stolen from her - but could not come to any conclusion other than that it _must_ have been one of the Enuvaris. So she went to the Dread Wolf, who had keen eyes and ears and who often knew things that others did not.

“‘Dread Wolf,’ she said when she found him - for he could often times be hard to find for those he did not wish to see him - “my prey has gone and I cannot find it. Tell me where my prey is or I shall put an arrow through you eye.”

Lavellan gave a gasp that seemed overly loud. “She _didn’t_.”

“She was Andruil,” said Solas, simply, quietly. There is a slight ringing in his ears, a buzzing in the back of his skull. “Some legend say that she taught the People many things, but others say that she was cruel to those who worshipped and followed her.”

“I can see which legends you lean towards.” She, herself, leans forward slightly. “Now, you simply cannot leave the story there! What did the Dread Wolf do?”

He feels that flutter of delight in the back of his mind, at being able to speak of such things; the words fall easily from his tongue. “The Dread Wolf thought himself sly and crafty, but he also knew that the longer he kept Andruil away, the more time he had for his own plans. So he sent her on a chase - ‘perhaps Falon’din’s owls will have seen where the People have gone,’ he said, and so Andruil went to Falon’din only to find those she sought were not there. She returned to the Dread Wolf in irritation, and this time he said ‘ask Dirthamen what his ravens have seen,’ and so she went then to Dirthamen only to find nothing. Again, she returned to the Dread Wolf and this time he made a mistake - ‘ask Ghilan’nain if her creatures of earth and sky and ocean have seen where those you hunt have gone,’ he said, but in his arrogance he had forgotten that Ghilan’nain kept close counsel with Andruil. And Andruil knew then that the Dread Wolf had tricked her.

“She drew her bow, but the Dread Wolf, knowing his game was up, had already disappeared into the forest. And so the Huntress, in her rage, hunted the Dread Wolf. For days and days she pursued him, deeper and deeper into the forest, far from the floating cities of the Enuvaris, until in the heart of the forest she caught him.”

“Oh.” Her eyes have gone very wide. “ _Oh_. I know this story. She tied him to a tree.”

Of course she would know that part. In every version of the story, that part persists. There is a brief, fleeting pang of irritation, but he brushes it away. “That is how the story goes. Andruil caught the Dread Wolf and bound him to a tree and made such threats as to attempt to put fear into his heart, should he not tell her where he had taken those she deemed hers. But what she did not know what that Anaris hunted in the forest as well, and he came upon them while the Dread Wolf was still bound and Andruil still distracted. And the Dread Wolf saw a chance, for he knew that there were few Andruil hated more than Anaris, and so he whispered to the Huntress of who was in the forest with them, and watched as she turned upon Anaris and Anaris turned upon her. And as they fought, the Dread Wolf waited and worried at his bonds, until the two lay bloodied and exhausted upon the ground. So tired and injured were they that they slipped into the dreaming to recover - and that is when the Dread Wolf slipped free of Andruil’s trap and took the both of them and locked them away forever.”

Lavellan stares at him. For a moment, she is so still that he almost wonders if she has heard the story. And then she blinks rapidly, giving herself the smallest shake.

“ _That_ is not how I have ever heard that story told before,” she says, and there is a note of wonder to how she says it.

“You have never heard me tell it before.”

She laughs, the sound too loud, like she is still trying to throw off that wide-eyed feeling that had settled over her. “No, that’s true. I haven’t.” She worries at her bottom lip with her teeth; the plum of the wine they have been drinking stains the edges of her mouth still. “I suppose I should tell a story. I _would_ like to, if you would like to listen?”

“That is quite agreeable to me,” he says, and he wonders at what story _she_ might tell. A flash of a smile between wine-stained lips sends his insides stumbling.

“Then I will need to come up with something good to tell,” she him, but then glances at his empty glass and at her own that is nearly the bottom. “But first, I think _I_ need a refill. Would you -?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

She leans over and picks the wine bottle off the coffee table, refilling her glass.

“Okay,” she says as she settles into her seat once more. She has turned so she faces him fully, resting against the corner of the back and the arm of the couch. “What story... _hmm_.” She worries at her lip again, a flash of white teeth. “Shall I continue the theme, then? Wolves and hunters?”

“Why ever not?” Wine sits warmly in his chest, in his stomach. _It is always a wolf,_ he thinks.

She stops chewing upon her lip, instead looking down at the glass of wine. Her eyelashes cast little shadows upon her cheeks.

“There was once an old wolf who slept for thousands of years, only to wake to a world with no other wolves. It was a strange world, for in the absence of wolves what creatures remained grew and changed until they were no longer how they had been before.”

“Such things happen without a predator to keep populations of prey in check,” Solas says, for he remembers classes upon this, even decades from his courses upon biology and ecology. But there is an uncomfortable itch between his shoulderblades, the cold thought that she is not talking of normal wolves.

Of course she is not.

“The wolf woke,” she continues softly, her eyes flickering to him for a moment and then away, eyelashes dipping languidly as though she is tired, as though the wine has taken hold and brought with it fatigue, “and he thought ‘everything around me is wrong, so far from what I know that it must not be real.’ And so the wolf, being a wolf, decided that the best course of action was to hunt down everything he saw as wrong, until he could swallow the world and somehow make it right again.”

 _Oh_.

He thinks that he knows this story.

“Now the wolf wandered through the forests and plains and mountains in search of prey, and it was in the last that he came upon a white hart. A halla with a broken leg, who had come to rest high atop the world, where she thought no one would find her.”

“He hunted her,” Solas says, quietly. Lavellan’s eyes flicker to his again.

“Maybe. No.” She shakes her head. “Maybe he wanted to. I don’t know. But the wolf saw the halla and thought that, in all of the strange world around him, there was nothing so rare and marvelous as that halla. And so he waited and watched as the halla healed and grew strong, until she stood tall and proud and could run as fast as he could. And one day, the wolf approached the halla and made his presence known.”

“And did the halla run?” Solas asks. He watches Lavellan shake her head again, sees the movement cause a fine tremor down her arm, making the wine dance within its glass.

“No,” she says. She is looking at him again now, head tipped slightly so as to rest against the back of the couch. “No. In a world without wolves, she did not know what he was. And so she did not know to run.

“And did the wolf attack the halla?” Solas asks, for he thinks he knows where this story will go. But Lavellan shakes her head once more.

“No. _No_. The wolf was a smart wolf, and he was weary and alone. The halla was a very great creature, with fine horns and sharp hooves, and the wolf still thought her the one strange, beautiful thing in a world he did not understand.”

“And so the wolf followed the halla when she left the mountains, and they ran across the plains and through the forests together. They saw many great things together, and the wolf saw that maybe there was some worth to the world that she so loved. And the halla came to love the wolf, for he seemed kind and gentle and intelligent, and she did not suspect how sharp his teeth were, how deadly his claws.”

She stops for a moment and sets down the wineglass. Leans against the couch heavily once more, left arm cradled in her lap.

“And then one day the wolf realized that if he stayed with the halla, he might come to see that the whole world was real and good as it was, and he could not abide that. So one night, while the halla rested, he turned to her and tore out her heart.”

Solas stares at her. It is...not what he thought. Not the story he thought, but something about it digs at him. Something claws. Something twists. There is a pressure in his head and in his chest.

“Your analogy - the story, as a metaphor - is flawed,” he says, even before she can draw a conclusion to her story, and he sees her head tilt in confusion.

“No, it isn’t,” she insists, and he finds it silly. It seems so obvious to him that she is wrong, or, rather, that her story is.

“It _is_.” He gestures lightly with his glass; wine rolls lazily within the bell. “Your assessment of the wolf - it is biologically, no, ecologically incorrect.”

She’s frowning. Perhaps he has said it incorrectly, for it has been years and years since his early, _failed_ attempts to be anything but what he was. Is. An artist, not a scientist, not a historian, but he still _remembers_.

Her brow is a harsh line, drawn together, furrows upon her skin. “ _How_ am I wrong about the wolf?”

“ _Wolves_ ,” he says, begins, his voice taking on the cadence of explanation, of lecture, of facts recited yet deeply felt, “are inherently social creatures. Packs, you see.”

“I know that,” she tells him. “ _Obviously_. They hunt in packs with strict social structures - an alpha pair at the top and -”

He laughs. He cannot help it. It bubbles up his throat and out his mouth and when he tries to stifle it he snorts.

She is _frowning_ at him.

“ _What?”_

“It astounds me how such misconceptions still persist,” he tells her. Her lips press together and her frown deepens. “I mean no disrespect to you, of course, but you are quite blatantly wrong. Or, I should say - the wolf in the story. Would you classify him as a wild wolf or a captive one?”

“...is there a difference?” she asks him after a moment’s pause.

“ _Yes_.” He leans forward then, one arm resting upon the back of the couch. “Our classic assessment of the social structure of wolves - it is _wrong_ as it pertains to studies conducted on _captive_ wolves.”

“ _What?_ ” She still looks confused, brow creased, her teeth now upon her bottom lip. “So - wait - the alpha dominance structures - that’s all captive wolves?”

He nods, feeling the slight vertigo brought about from the movement. Too many glasses of wine, he thinks, but at the moment he does not mind. “ _Yes_. Exactly. In captivity, in enclosed spaces, wolves adapt their social structure to - or rather, their social structure changes to accommodate a - a lack of space and the forced inclusion of unrelated wolves. A more rigid, artificial structure can be observed - and that is what classic models of their society is based upon. Those strongest, most aggressive - _those_ were designated the alpha pair, then the beta, and so on. Those perceived to be greater than the others at the top, everyone else beneath them.”

“Mmmh.” Lavellan nods her head, as though she is following him. Her frown has eased slightly; her bottom lip is stained deep purple with wine. “So. Wild wolves. They’re different?”

Solas nods again; he feels rather light, rather unsteady even while seated. Wine has made his limbs warm and loose, but he remembers this well, even though years have passed. Remembers wolves and their howling, before art became his world. “A pack, in the wild. It is formed of mating pairs and their offspring. There is no alpha - there are _parents_ and those that they care for. And when those young grow, they break off and create their own packs. Packs are familial units. But that is not precisely where I find fault with your analogy.”

“And what _fault_ do you find, if not that?”

“Your wolf was _alone_ ,” he says, gesturing again. Wine slips up the side of the glass, nearly spilling. He feels something tight in his chest. “Without a pack, without a family. Wolves do not - they do not hunt alone. Not generally. They hunt in _packs_ , selecting the young or the weak or the injured for their prey. Prey which they can easily take out with the least chance of injury to themselves. There is no sense in chasing something which would easily bring them to harm. Your wolf - you say he attacked the halla when she was healthy and in her prime? A wolf would not hunt such a creature alone!”

The tightness in his chest increases until it becomes a desperate pressure.

“It is a story,” she says quietly. “It does not need to work perfectly with what is scientifically sound.”

He does not understand why the story hurts so much. It should not; it is merely a story of a wolf and a halla.

It feels as though it is more.

“You give the halla too little credit,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse to his own ears.

There is something about her face, something about the part of her lips and the softness of her eyes. But her brow wrinkles; there is confusion etched upon her skin.

“What do you mean?”

“A halla is not something one lone, old wolf could attack and come out unscathed,” he says softly, his voice now as quiet as hers. “And your halla - your wolf. Perhaps he ripped out her heart, but I imagine it likely that the halla took his in exchange.”

He thinks there is something exceedingly sad about the way she looks at him in that moment.

“Maybe he did. I don’t know,” she tells him. Her wine glass is empty, but she holds it delicately between her hands. Her gaze falls away from his. “I’ve never known. But it is just a story, and try as I might to understand the wolf, my analysis always seems to fall just short of understanding why he did what he did.”

That pressure in his chest does not ease. He feels a pang of something, a sharp jolt of his heart, but wine has turned his thoughts hollow and removed, everything slightly off-kilter, everything unsteady. He focuses upon her fingers, how they curve around the glass. The articulated joints of her left hand, the twisted lines of silver etched upon her fingers.

“Perhaps,” he says, softly, searching for something that feels just out of reach. “Perhaps he was too proud. Too sure of himself. Or perhaps too desperate. Your wolf found himself in a world he did not understand, and put himself on a path that only saw ruin, whether inevitable or self-created. Perhaps he knew that there was no happy ending to his story, and found a small measure of happiness when he could.”

Lavellan makes a small noise, a single gasping breath that catches in her chest, in her throat. The empty glass drops from her fingers and rolls upon the couch. Solas picks it up before it can fall to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she says, hiding her mouth behind her hand. For a moment, she does not look at him. “I believe I’ve had too much to drink.”

His heart feels too tight within his chest. His head swims slightly.

“Myself as well.”

“Mmm.” She rests her head against the couch. “I suppose Dorian will let us stay. Dorian!” She speaks too loudly, the word resounding through the room.

“Yes? Are you two deigning to remember that there are others here finally?”

Lavellan tips her head up, looks to where Dorian is across the room. “We’re staying on your couch tonight.”

“ _We?_ ”

“Please do say it’s all right, Dorian. You own a lovely couch.”

Solas catches the sigh that Dorian makes, but he also sees something like affection in his expression.

“It’s quite all right. By all means, help yourselves to my couch for as long as you’d like.”

Lavellan’s smile is half-hidden. “Thank you, Dorian.”

 

***

 

Still, they sit and talk; the conversation moves to other topics, away from wolves, away from stories. He’s uncertain how long they speak for; he does not check the time. At some point, the rest of the party dies down. People leave, things grow quieter.

It grows late and fatigue pulls upon Solas’ limbs, tugs his eyes closed even as he still sits upon the couch across from Lavellan. He is nearly asleep when he realizes something.

“Your story,” he says, quietly. “You did not tell me the ending.”

For a moment, he thinks she is asleep and does not hear him. A minute passes; two, perhaps.

“ _Oh_ ,” she says when she finally does speak, and her voice is so soft that he almost does not realize she is talking. “I suppose I didn’t.”

“ _Is_ there an ending?”

Again, silence. The soft sounds of steady breathing.

“I don’t know,” Lavellan finally says. “Maybe it doesn’t have one. I will tell you, if I ever know.”

It seems strange, like so many things about her. But he is tired and it is late. He does not press for an answer, or for some way to make light of the things that she says.

He falls asleep upon Dorian’s couch, Lavellan at his side.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's fanart! The lovely acecasinova drew [this wonderful piece](http://acecasinova.tumblr.com/post/132705053049/i-dont-like-charcoal-but-this-fic-is-giving-me) based on the last chapter! I adore the charcoal and the minimal use of color, as well as the balance! I'm so delighted by this!

 “Come, before the band stops playing. Dance with me,” he says, and someone takes his hand. Soft leather over slender fingers, yellow-gold and red and blue. He tugs; she comes to him, hand upon his shoulder, fingers entwined with his.

There is music; he cannot hear the melody, only the beat.

One-two- _three_ , one-two- _three_.

Steady, constant. Like a heartbeat.

His feet move upon stone, so do hers. His hand slides to the curve of her waist; she follows the sway of his body, the gentle push of his hand, the momentum of his movements. Step-step- _together_ , step-step- _together_ , graceful, relaxed, none of the tension, none of the apprehension of when she had danced before.

There are branches upon her face, white and glittering. A mask? A mark? There is something indistinct, something just out of reach. The suggestion of the curve of a nose, the line of a jaw, features nearly there, warped as though viewed through old, clouded glass.He cannot see her eyes, or her lips, yet he knows she smiles.

One-two- _three_ , one-two- _three_.

He pulls her closer, or she pulls him. No need to care if the courts see them; they do not matter, not quite, not _yet_ , though there is more color to them than had been there before. And yet she is the only thing that burns, brilliant and bright, beautiful, alive, _real_.

Her chest presses against his, or he presses against her. He feels her heart, or perhaps it is his. There is no music save for the beat of that heart. She tilts her head up, lips so close to his skin, her breath a ghost against the shell of his ear as she speaks soft words that he cannot hear.

 _Solas_.

He shuts his eyes.

When he opens them again, it is to the smell of burning and the sound of things clattering. He is disoriented at first, heart pounding in his chest, his mind grasping for _something_. He feels a profound emptiness, something hollow within his ribs, the unsettling feeling that there is something he should know, but doesn’t. Above him is a wide expanse of white. Grey sparks flitter in his vision.

There are soft voices from a short distance away from him, and the world rights itself. He is laying on his back upon Dorian’s couch and it is morning. There is a soft blanket pulled up over him, though it has slipped down enough to leave his arms uncovered.

He can hear, now, the soft sizzle of things cooking upon the stove and realizes that it is only bacon or perhaps sausage that he smells.

“Are you planning on going home?” he hears a soft voice say from the kitchen. Lavellan, he thinks. He remembers, with a sudden rush of blood to his face, falling asleep next to her upon the couch.

There is laughter - short, bitter, sharp.

“Me? Go _home?_ Perish the thought. As if the disgrace of the whole family would be welcomed home.” There is the sudden hiss of grease spitting - something’s been dropped onto a skillet. “If my father wants to see him, he’ll have to come here. I am quite finished with attempting to appease an old man who cannot think that, _maybe_ , his son is quite capable of thinking for himself.”

“You’re not a disgrace, Dorian.”

“Of course I’m not. I’m a _delight_.” The skillet hisses again, louder this time. Something clatters upon the counter. “Besides, if I were to fly anywhere, it would be to someplace a bit more entertaining than Minrathous. I’ve heard Antiva is lovely this time of year. Or possibly Seheron, if I’m feeling _particularly_ adventurous. Pass me that plate, will you?”

There’s the sound of ceramic being pushed over stone; it grates, and Solas heard Dorian make a noise of protest.

“Be _careful_. Honestly, no one here has the sense to be kind to fine servingware. Now, if you’re done prying, would you be so kind as to tell me _what_ is going on between you and our dear artist?”

It is in that moment that Solas ought to have made his state of consciousness known. But he does not.

“ _Now_ who’s prying? Also: no,” says Lavellan, and Dorian gives a _most_ long suffering sigh, as though that single word is the most disappointing answer she could have given him. “Really, what brought this on? Who says there’s anything going on?”

“Falling asleep together on the couch, for one. It does tend to suggest certain _things_. But more importantly, he _is_ , in fact, a friend. A dear one, mind you, and I don’t have many of those.”

“ _Oh_.” There is some quality - not sadness, but something like it - which suffuses that single word. Not surprise, not resignation - perhaps he reads to much into it, but that single word, that single breath, seems to encompass some sort of realization.

He thinks.

“It’s…” she begins, but her words stumble. Stop. Start again. “I enjoy speaking with him. Our conversations are always enlightening.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“I know.”

Upon the coffee table, his phone vibrates. It buzzes two, three times, each seemingly louder than the last. The small sound seems to fill the room, even over the hissing of oil in the kitchen.

Solas sits up then, finally, though the moment he moves his head informs him - politely - that he drank too much the night before. He picks up his phone only to see a new text from Varric that requires no immediate response. So he shuts the screen off and slips it into his pocket.

And then he gets up off the couch and walks over to the kitchen.

“Good morning,” he says, still feeling the weight of sleep in each of his limbs, in his eyes, even in how he speaks. Though he has been awake for several minutes now, fatigue still clings to him.

The kitchen is rather warm, whether from the heat of the house or the heat of the stove. There is food - bacon, eggs, toast - nearly done cooking, much of it already laid out upon the counter.

“Good morning, Solas,” Lavellan says softly from where she sits at the central island of the kitchen. She’s got a mug of steaming coffee in her right hand. He glances at it, then at her face - she looks as tired as he feels, circles etched under her eyes.

“If you insist upon stumbling around my kitchen like a zombie, you could at least not get in my way,” says Dorian, neatly stepping around Solas to grab another plate. “Mugs are in the cupboard, sugar is on the counter.”

“Mmm.” Solas makes a rather noncommittal noise before walking over to the coffeemaker. He does not stumble, thankfully, though his stomach gives a rather unpleasant lurch and his head pounds.

Too much wine. His mouth tastes sour.

He puts too much sugar into his coffee and drowns the entire thing in milk, and then, after a moment’s contemplation, sits down at the counter beside Lavellan.

He feels entirely uncertain what to say. He vaguely remembers how late they stayed up talking, until they were the only ones still awake. He thinks of how much he had enjoyed speaking with her, even considering the tension during their discussion of wolves. But morning has left him feeling particularly worn out and his tongue feels thick in his mouth, words not flowing easily.

Dorian might have assessed his movements as zombie-like, but Solas thinks that Lavellan seems more zombie-like than he. She stares at her phone with an unfocused gaze, her hand curled loosely around her coffee mug as though she’s half forgotten it. Now that the conversation has died down in the kitchen, it seems as though she has let fatigue claim her.

From the corner of his eye, Solas sees her phone flicker slightly as a string of incoming texts appear on the screen. Lavellan breathes in deeply, then releases a great sigh. She sets her coffee down and turns off her phone.

“So,” she says, forced enthusiasm in her voice. “I do believe I drank too much wine last night. Among other things. I should know not to drink anything Bull brings with him by now. How are _you_ feeling, Solas?”

“I feel as though sleeping for several thousand years would be a blessing at the moment,” he says. Dorian snorts, loudly.

Lavellan stares at him.

And then laughs.

Weakly.

“Contrary to popular believe, sleeping for a thousand years is not a good hangover cure,” she tells him. “Though if it was, I suppose that would explain the ancient stories about uthenera.”

“If I might interject, could we at least _eat_ before you begin with the ancient elvhen history lesson?” Dorian puts the last plate of food onto the counter and takes a seat himself. “Here. _Food_. Which I have made for you all with my own blood and tears after you both decided to stay the night and take up my perfectly lovely couch.”

“A true sacrifice.” Lavellan smiles, though. “Thank you, Dorian.”

And so here he is: tired, somewhat hungover, eating breakfast in Dorian’s house with Lavellan beside him.

It is utterly strange.

It is oddly comforting.

And above all he feels off-kilter, like everything around him is slightly out of alignment with how it should be.

He puts it down to the wine from the night before and drinks coffee until his hands shake from too much caffeine.

***

_[Varric] 3:15 pm: So_

_[Varric] 3:15 pm: Chuckles_

_[Varric] 3:16 pm: I never thought I’d live to see the day_

_[Solas] 3:18 pm: Dare I ask what this is about?_

_[Varric] 3:20 pm: You. Drunk. To be fair, you were almost exactly like you always are, just louder and even more talkative._

_[Solas] 3:21 pm: I do endeavour to be consistent._

_[Varric] 3:23 pm: You do that._

_[Varric] 3:30 pm: Have you read anymore yet?_

_[Varric] 3:32 pm: An author does have to have his ego stoked._

_[Solas] 3:35 pm: You are not so utterly ill-informed as to come to me to have your ego stoked._

_[Varric] 3:36 pm: True_

_[Varric] 3:37 pm: All right, Chuckles, what part of it is pissing you off now?_

_[Solas] 3:41 pm: Your depiction of the Magister Corypheus is remarkably well informed. The ‘archdemon’ is an accurate inclusion, if written in a somewhat cliche manner._

_[Varric] 3:45 pm: I’m surprised!_

_[Varric] 3:46 pm: No unforgivable historical inaccuracies?_

_[Solas] 3:47 pm: I find it highly improbable that the fledgling Inquisition stood around a campfire singing “Andraste’s Mabari.”_

***

He still has _Andraste’s Mabari_ stuck in his head two days later during one of his studio periods; he’s sitting at the front of the class as his students draw precariously stacked cans and cinderblocks, trying not to hum.

There was a particularly atrocious version of _Andraste’s Mabari_ that was popular during his college days. He and Vivienne used to rather passive aggressively swap any cassette tape in the other’s car out for it; neither had ever admitted to doing so, but they each knew it had been the other. It’s that version which is stuck in his head, though he has heard there is a new version popular on with the young kids these days.

It’s even worse. He’s heard it.

Still, he finds himself thinking over it as his class drags on. He has, after all, little to do as the students draw, save for occasionally checking in on their work. He considers the absurdity of the song and the juxtaposition of the main components.

Now, for all that Solas often puts up a face of being exceedingly patient and of thinking things out in advance, that is hardly the truth. At least, it is not the truth in all things, and more often than not he will think of something and then - before he can truly contemplate the pros and cons of whatever it is - he will put it into action.

And the problem with having something such as a highly capable cellular phone is that it is far to easy to do something generally irreversible before one’s better judgement can catch up.

 _Are you familiar with the folk song “Andraste’s Mabari”?_ he types out onto the shiny surface of his too-expensive, too-frivolous phone.

He hits send.

And immediately regrets it, because though his thought process for sending it makes sense to _him_ , he is not entirely certain as to other people’s thoughts on the song _and_ it is likely something he ought not to have texted right in the middle of the day.

Still, less than five minutes later his phone lights up. The corners of his mouth twitch at the stream of incoming texts.

_[Lavellan] 1:47 pm: Are you serious_

_[Lavellan] 1:47 pm: Are you seriously asking me about Andraste’s mabari_

_[Solas] 1:49 pm: I would have thought you would have some opinion as to how important it is to the oral traditions of southern Thedas._

_That_ he wishes he could take back the moment he says it. Tone does not translate well via text; when she does not respond for several minutes, he wonders if, perhaps, he has insulted her.

It would not be the first time.

But then more texts come through after a moment and he finds that he did not need to worry.

_[Lavellan] 1:56 pm: Well, the fact that it’s stuck around for nearly a thousand years tells you a lot about it’s cultural significance and how much the Ferelden love of dogs has influenced the rest of Thedas._

_[Lavellan] 1:57 pm: It also tells you that a theoretically amusing song can be ruined when set to an obnoxious tune and covered by every major musician of the past hundred years._

_[Lavellan] 1:59 pm: If not longer_

_[Lavellan] 2:00 pm: If there were reliable recording devices from before the last few centuries, I’m certain we would be finding dozens - if not hundreds - of regional variants_

_[Solas] 2:02 pm: It’s endurance makes sense, given that Ferelden tastes have long influenced popular culture._

_[Solas] 2:05 pm: There is a significant artistic period known affectionately as “The Barkspawn Era”_

_[Lavellan] 2:06 pm: You’re joking._

_[Solas] 2:11 pm: I wish that I was. It is a subset of Ferelden artistry during the Dragon Age, wherein a series of elaborate paintings were commissioned for the King of Ferelden of a singular mabari who, legend has, was named Barkspawn. Often painted beside large stacks of cheese wheels._

_[Solas] 2:16 pm: Scholar’s suggest that it was a small movement responsible for two larger ones - the future propensity for nobles to have themselves painted as secondary to their canine companions, as well as the later “Cheese Wheel” movement of 9:55 Dragon._

_[Lavellan] 2:20 pm: Please tell me this is a joke._

_[Solas] 2:22 pm: While I have been told my grim and fatalistic sense of humor does, in fact, exist, I must assure you that I never joke about art._

_[Lavellan] 2:25 pm: Liar. I’m looking this up._

_[Lavellan] 2:30 pm: Dread Wolf, you aren’t lying!_

_[Lavellan] 2:32 pm: How did I not know about this? This is fantastic!_

He finds himself smiling at the screen of his too-expensive phone.

Perhaps it was not such a bad idea to text her, after all.

***

Maybe he’ll text her again. Something similar. Obscure art history knowledge; she seems to have enjoyed some of it, perhaps she will continue to like more.

Maybe.

***

He considers it.

***

The cubicles for the advanced art students are not often empty, not even late in the day, not even on weekends. The students are given codes to the building and the room so they can come in to work on projects when class isn’t in session.

Still, it is quite during his office hours that week, and he takes some time to walk through the room, checking in on the progress of various students, speaking softly with those who had come in for the day. Sera’s not in, but her cubicle is a wreck, as always; paint and string and paper all over the floor. She’s done a new piece which he peers at with creased brow for several minutes, trying to determine what it is. It’s mixed media again, images cut out and cut again and again until he can barely tell what the whole pictures used to be. Over the top she’s painted with acrylic in browns and earthy tones, and over _that_ she’s splattered black paint until the canvas looks freckled.

She must have taken a brush and flicked it at the piece over and over with great force; he can see an arc of black paint along the wall of the cubicle where she missed at least once.

Stepping back, he thinks that the image _might_ be a distorted face, surrounded by other fragments of faces, but he also gets the sense that Sera has painted a very large, abstract cookie.

She’s accidentally left her acrylics open; he replaces the caps on the tubes to keep them from drying out.

As he makes his final pass of the cubicles, he walks past the empty one in the back corner of the room. Only when he looks at it, it’s not empty - and of course it isn’t, it’s Cole’s cubicle.

He’s not certain why he had thought it was empty at all.

Cole’s workspace is near the opposite of Sera’s in every way. It is neat, near spotless save for the paper and canvases hung upon the walls, and all of the paint tubes are neatly capped.

Solas realizes that he hasn’t seen most of the pieces arrayed around the cubicle. They are done in stark black and white with splashes of color; dark figures on light backgrounds, dark backgrounds with figures cut out in white - Cole does play with negative space quite often.

There is a painting upon his easel, still wet with paint. Black and white paint, nothing more. He’s played with the balance of the piece, with white heavy along the bottom and black along the top. He appreciates the unbalanced symmetry of it first, how the figure upon it is near centered, white cut out from the black background. And then, barely a breath later, he realizes what he’s seeing.

He thought it a tree at first, but it is not. The white is the bust of a hart, who’s antlers stretch up across the rest of the canvas, branching out into the limbs of a trees, gnarled and old, broken here and there. Stark, bare branches of a tree, not a single leaf in sight, but still - it is undeniable what the antlers are supposed to be.

And then, the black around the rest of the canvas -

He’s hidden it cleverly, near to the point that it is almost too hard to pull it out of the piece. But there is a wolf wrapped around the hart, the lines giving it definition seem almost accidental. A great, black, many eyed wolf, it’s mouth shut, hidden in the horns and around the edge of the canvas.

It is...a coincidence. Of course it is a coincidence, for Cole could not possibly know the discussion of wolves and harts that passed between him and Lavellan, and yet it is all too fitting.

He glances at the rest of Cole’s paintings - and then he has to look away. He turns back towards his office.

“I’m sorry,” says Cole’s voice from behind him. “You’re confused, adrift, grasping at things that weren’t supposed to be taken but are better left forgotten. The painting makes you sad, but you don’t know why. I did not mean to make you sad, Solas.”

He turns back. Cole is standing there, clutching a jar filled with turpentine to his chest.

“I did not see you there, Cole,” he says softly. He knows there had been no one there before.

Cole sets down the turpentine. “I had to find this to clean my brushes,” he tells him. “Dried paint will make the bristles old and tired, worn out before they should be. If I clean them now, they will last longer.”

“A good practice to keep,” he says. His eyes drift back to the painting. “Tell me, why did you draw a hart?”

“I like halla,” Cole says, his eyes very wide. His skin is so translucent that he can see blue veins beneath the surface. “They are strong and fast. Their friendship is hard to gain, but once won they will be there for you through all things. For as long as you are worthy of them.”

“ _Ah_.” Solas is not certain he understands the _why_ of Cole’s artistic choice, but at least he knows more of his opinion on large ungulates.

Cole tilts his head, blinking owlishly at him. “She’s tired, too. Like the brushes. Too much paint and never enough time to clean it away. But she still wants to help.”

Solas frowns. “It is a very fine piece,” he finally says, uncertain of what else to say, uncertain what to do with the unease that settles in the back of his mind at Cole’s words. “I understand the significance of the halla; but what of the wolf?”

It is Cole’s turn to frown; he turns and looks at his painting.

“I didn’t paint a wolf,” he says, and the sense of unease in Solas’ mind grows. “I painted ravens.”

And when he looks at the painting again, he cannot see the wolf anymore and yet flocks of ravens sit nestled between the branches of the halla’s antlers.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more art! Acecasinova drew another piece, this time with ink, and it's based on [the piece of Cole's art](http://acecasinova.tumblr.com/post/133572272369/i-didnt-paint-a-wolf-i-painted-ravens-ah) that Solas was looking at in the last chapter and it's _amazing!_
> 
>  
> 
> Also, because I'm still in a fluster over this, as you can probably see from all the notes I've left on this fic or heard me talk about on my blog, I accidentally deleted the original posting for this fic, which means that for anyone who was subscribed to it you won't get alerts because...well, I had to repost the whole thing (maybe I'll post the whole story of what happened over at my blog because it's...well, it's gotten funnier to me the further out it gets, but at the time it was a moment of "stares in horror at AO3 because WHAT DID I DO?").
> 
>  
> 
> _Anyway, a huge thank you to everyone who's been reading and who left kudos and to everyone who's left comments (I won't be able to respond since the original posting is gone, but I still have copies in my email and seriously I appreciate all your comments so much!)._

_[Lavellan] 3:21 pm: I have something for you_

_[Solas] 3:30 pm: Excuse me?_

_[Solas] 3:31 pm: I was unaware that there was anything you might have for me_

_[Lavellan] 3:36 pm: A story. Historical in nature._

_[Solas] 3:36 pm: I see._

_[Lavellan] 3:38 pm: I’m not sure what you were expecting I might have for you!_

_[Solas] 3:40 pm: A story historical in nature will do nicely_

_[Lavellan] 3:42 pm: It’s also mabari in nature_

_[Lavellan] 3:42 pm: Did you know that in 12:87 a mabari was crowned king of Ferelden?_

_[Solas] 3:44 pm: I am fairly certain that you are joking_

_[Lavellan] 3:45 pm: Did you joke about the Barkspawn Era paintings?_

_[Lavellan] 3:47 pm: The last line of rulers of Ferelden had died out in 12:85 and lead to a time of political unrest_

_[Lavellan] 3:48 pm: The populace decided to attempt to crown a new ruler based on popular support_

_[Lavellan] 3:50 pm: King Kibbles McGee was chosen by popular demand. He ruled for a decade through a panel of advisors_

_[Solas] 3:53 pm: A sound way to run a country. However, I get the sense that you have made up that name._

_[Lavellan] 3:54 pm: Well...yes. That was a lie. His name was King Ruffus the First. Formerly named Kibbles._

 

_***_

 

_[Solas] 10:04 am: Speaking of Ferelden monarchs_

_[Lavellan] 10:16 am: We’re speaking of Ferelden monarchs?_

_[Lavellan] 10:17 am: Sorry, go on. What about Ferelden monarchs? Is this a new species of butterfly?_

_[Solas] 10:18 am: A different sort of monarch._

_[Solas] 10:20 am: In the early days of King Cailan Therin’s short rule, a series of portraits of him, painted upon velvet, were commissioned and distributed around Thedas_

_[Solas] 10:21 am: They were referred to as “Velvet Cailan’s”_

_[Lavellan] 10:35 am: …_

_[Lavellan] 10:35 am: That sounds positively indecent_

_[Solas] 10:37 am: One imagines that it was a particularly self-indulgent endeavor. Though most degraded quickly if not preserved properly. The last known remaining one is kept by a private Orlesian collector._

_[Solas] 10:38 am: I have not seen it personally, but descriptions suggest that it is, in fact, both decadent and indecent._

_[Lavellan] 10:38 am: I bet the Orlesians loved them_

_[Solas] 10:39 am: It has been supposed that the remaining one used to be owned by Empress Celene._

_[Lavellan] 10:40 am: [laughter emojis]_

_[Lavellan] 10:40 am: SHE WOULD HAVE_

 

_***_

 

_[Lavellan] 4:12 pm: My turn again. I’ll move things away from Ferelden_

_[Lavellan] 4:12 pm: Slightly away_

_[Solas] 4:30 pm: By slightly are you referring to any of the other people who live or lived in the Ferelden wilds?_

_[Lavellan] 4:32 pm: I do have stories about them, but no. More west._

_[Solas] 4:32 pm: Ah_

_[Solas] 4:32 pm: Orlais_

_[Solas] 4:33pm: I might have guessed, given our previous conversation._

_[Lavellan] 4:34 pm: 9:41 Dragon. The Orlesian Civil war. A bunch of nobles squabbling over land._

_[Solas] 4:35 pm: Something which has occurred since the first being raised themselves higher than another_

_[Lavellan] 4:36 pm: I’m sure you could tell me all about that_

_[Lavellan] 4:36 pm: But_

_[Lavellan] 4:39 pm: Okay. So. 9:41 Dragon. Orlais breaks down in civil war, pitting several members of the royal family against one another; Empress Celene and Grand Duke Gaspard de Chalons. Following the murder of Celene, Gaspard ascended to the throne. This lead to a remarkable period of history for Orlais, which was nevertheless still very tumultuous._

_[Lavellan] 4:42 pm: What isn’t spoken about often is how Gaspard was not, in fact, the true ruler of Orlais during this time. He was nothing more than a figurehead, while the real power lay with Briala, Marquess of the Dales._

_[Solas] 4:43 pm: That is an obscure fact. How is it that you know such a thing?_

_[Lavellan] 4:58 pm: My speciality is elvhen history between the Exalted Age and present day, though with a specific focus upon the Dragon Age_

_[Lavellan] 4:58 pm: I know things_

_[Solas] 5:00 pm: That has become increasingly apparent._

_[Solas] 5:00 pm: It is impressive_

_[Lavellan] 5:06 pm: You think I’m impressive?_

_[Solas] 5:08 pm: You have a remarkable command of history and you take obvious pride and delight in your field. I find that very impressive_

_[Solas] 5:09 pm: Though someday I would love to see your sources for much of this_

_[Lavellan] 5:11 pm: I’m sure I could dig up something adequate to your standards of citation._

 

_***_

 

_[Solas] 11:15 am: The University of Orlais hosts one of the largest collections of art pertaining to the Battle of the Squealing Plains_

_[Lavellan] 11:17 am: Oh, it’s such a great exhibit! Did you know there are 1,054 individual nugs contained within all the paintings in that collection?_

_[Solas] 11:20 am: It appears you already know what I was planning on telling_

_[Lavellan] 11:21 am: Sorry to ruin it for you_

_[Lavellan] 11:22 am: I did used to work at that university, you know_

_[Solas] 11:24 am: Ah, yes. Dorian mentioned that you were a colleague of a friend of his who works there_

_[Lavellan] 11:25 am: Dr. Felix Alexius. A brilliant physicist. I can’t even comprehend half of what he does_

_[Solas] 11:26 am: I’m more interested in what it was that you did while in Orlais._

_[Lavellan] 11: 35 am: Artifact requisition and preservation_

_[Solas] 11:36 am: I had assumed you taught_

_[Lavellan] 11:39 am: Only recently_

_[Lavellan] 11:41 am: I spent a number of years doing field work before I was employed as a professor_

_[Lavellan] 11:45 am: I documented various historical sites as they were uncovered_

_[Solas] 11:51 am: I find myself surprised, and yet it requires little effort to imagine you within ancient temples._

 

_***_

 

_[Solas] 1:26 am: I have pondered on a more obscure story to tell you. I find myself curious as to whether or not this is one that you already know._

_[Solas] 1:30 am: My apologies, lethallin. I did not realize the time._

_[Lavellan] 1:32 am: Lethallin?_

_[Solas] 1:32 am: A slip of the tongue._

_[Lavellan] 1:33 am: I don’t mind._

_[Lavellan] 1:33 am: No one has called me that in a long time._

_[Lavellan] 1:34 am: And no need to apologize; I’m up late grading papers anyway. Why are YOU up so late?_

_[Solas] 1:35 am: I could not sleep. It is a problem I have had often as of late._

_[Lavellan] 1:37 am: You have trouble sleeping?_

_[Solas] 1:37 am: Yes, though it is of no matter. I have learned to function well even on minimal sleep._

_[Lavellan] 1:38 am: That explains the coffee, I suppose!_

_[Solas] 1:38 am: I detest it, though not so much as tea. But it does have its uses._

_[Lavellan] 1:39 am: I’ve always thought so._

_[Lavellan] 1:39 am: I still can’t believe you don’t like tea._

_[Solas] 1:40 am: It is little more than hot leaf juice._

_[Lavellan] 1:40 am: Coffee is just hot bean juice!_

_[Lavellan] 1:41 am: Oh gosh, I’m not going to argue about this at almost 2 in the morning._

_[Solas] 1:41 am: I should let you sleep._

_[Lavellan] 1:42 am: Papers, remember? Also, you had a story for me!_

_[Solas] 1:44 am: As you already know, while a great deal was lost, the ancient elves still left much in terms of iconography behind. The halla for Ghilan’nain, the wolf for Fen’harel, the owl for Falon’din._

_[Solas] 1:45 am: During an excavation of a Deep Roads site around 9:43 Dragon, several statues of elvhen origin were uncovered. There were several things unique about the discovery - the first was evidence of elvhen influence within a dwarven area._

_[Solas] 1:46 am: The second is the particulars of the statues found. A dragon - depicting Mythal - and a wolf. To find such things beside one another is of quite some interest, given that most elvhen ruins and myth prior to that discovery did not show any real ties between Mythal and Fen’harel._

_[Solas] 1:47 am: The discovery lead to a reexamination of prior findings, which caused several historians to suggest that early records of the two working together had been erased._

_[Solas] 1:48 am: I have always wondered if it was not erased on purpose._

_[Solas] 1:48 am: Still, the two are more closely linked than most legend and myth would have one think._

_[Lavellan] 1:49 am: How do you know that?_

_[Solas] 1:49 am: Are obscure facts to be solely your domain?_

_[Lavellan] 1:50 am: No but I’m just_

_[Lavellan] 1:50 am: Surprised_

_[Lavellan] 1:50 am: I’m just curious as to where you learned this._

_[Solas] 1:51 am: I believe I inquired into your sources as well._

_[Solas] 1:51 am: Perhaps we will have to exchange sources sometime._

_[Lavellan] 1:56 am: Perhaps_

_[Lavellan] 1:57 am: Not at 2 in the morning, though_

_[Lavellan] 1:57 am: Good night, Solas_

_[Solas] 1:58 am: Good night. lethallin._

 

***

 

_[Lavellan] 6:35 pm: How are your students preparing for midterms? Mine seem to be panicking_

_[Lavellan] 6:37 pm: Do art professors even hold midterms?_

_[Solas] 6:46 pm: It varies based upon class._

_[Solas] 6:47 pm: My classes require only a midterm portfolio review based upon what projects they have been assigned this semester._

_[Solas] 6:50 pm: I believe the current state of affairs within the studio could be described as “terrified panic.”_

_[Lavellan] 7:02 pm: Haha_

_[Lavellan] 7:05 pm: I had something to ask you_

_[Solas] 7:06 pm: I am always appreciative of questions._

_[Lavellan] 7:06 pm: Less a question, more_

_[Lavellan] 7:06 pm: Well_

_[Lavellan] 7:06 pm: Seeing as it’s my turn to tell you a story_

_[Lavellan] 7:07 pm: I am giving a lecture at the end of the week. An open community lecture, so it theoretically won’t just be students looking for extra credit before midterms._

_[Solas] 7:07 pm: A lecture upon what subject?_

_[Lavellan] 7:16 pm: Distortion of legend into myth over time, and how we can find hints of truth within story_

_[Lavellan] 7:17 pm: Specifically tied to elvhen traditions both ancient and dalish_

_[Lavellan] 7:18 pm: I wanted to invite you, incase you would be interested. It will be a few hours of sitting listening to me speak_

_[Solas] 7:21 pm: I would not mind listening to you speak for several hours._

_[Solas] 7:21 pm: I will be there. I am certain that it will be fascinating._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: while most of the timestamps on the texts aren't too important, there are a few points where they _are_.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s the sort of cold, frozen morning where Solas’ nose begins to go numb before he’s even part way across campus. He’s bundled up in a woolen coat and the most subdued scarf in his closet, boots on his feet and gloves on his hands.

“That is the single most beige scarf I have ever seen in my entire life,” Dorian says when they meet in front of the admin building. He looks exceedingly unhappy about this - or perhaps he’s merely unhappy about the cold. He never had gotten used to southern winters. “In fact, it might be the single most beige _garment_ in existence. How _do_ you live with such a mundane wardrobe?”

“Quite easily,” Solas replies. He passes Dorian a woefully plain cup of coffee - it’s his turn to buy today. This seems to perk Dorian up remarkably.

They end up sitting on the stairs out front of the art building for a bit, despite the cold. Their drinks steam before them, held within gloved hands, and they are both silent for a time.

“Have you ever considered…” Dorian begins, before he pulls himself up short. His lips press together; the edges of his moustache are not quite so artfully curled today.

“I have considered many things,” Solas says. He sips his coffee and tastes sugar heavy on his tongue. “Which _specific_ thing are you wondering about?”

Dorian’s moustache twitches. “This is going to sound terribly romantic of me,” he says, to which Solas snorts. “Oh, do be quiet. I am a good deal more romantic in nature than _you_. As I was saying…”

And here he takes a breath. There’s some sort of faraway look in his eyes.

“Have you ever met someone and felt that you have known them for far longer than should be possible?” he finally says, the words coming out of him in a rush. He turns his coffee cup around and around between his hands. “Like you’ve known them forever?”

Something catches in Solas’ chest. He thinks of a handshake and an easy smile. A wolf etched in silver upon the inside of a wrist.

“Perhaps not forever,” he says softly as he considers this. “Forever is a very long time, after all.”

Silence stretches between them, until Solas’ nose grows cold and his coffee begins to cool.

“On a _completely_ unrelated note, I’ve begun seeing someone,” he says, finally, and _that_ does surprise Solas. Dorian rarely talks about his relationships, not even to close friends.

Solas doesn’t ask him who it is, but he feels that, somehow, those two comments are _entirely_ related.

***

He’s not entirely certain what to expect as he walks into the presentation hall where Lavellan is to speak. He’s not walking in unprepared, of course; he’s seen the fliers for the talk, advertising Professor Lavellan’s topic as _Comparative Elvhen Mythology_. Still, that is a topic that is quite broad in scope, and Lavellan so often surprises him that he is uncertain _what_ she will focus upon.

Though he will not admit it aloud, there is a part of him that was darkly amused when he saw _elvhen mythology_ in the talk title. It was a term often bandied around far too freely, and too many of the stories were either taken as fact at face value or dismissed as part of a dead culture with no real historical significance without the consideration of the deeper meanings held in the stories.

But if he had learned anything about Lavellan in the past months, it was that she was quite able to assign value to stories while still looking into the truth behind them. It was one of the aspects of her that he found deeply compelling.

When Solas had been a freshman in his own university days, he had briefly entertained the idea of minoring in history. That idea had died a sudden death when he realized that each and every class he took left the most sour of tastes behind in his mouth. Though he did not know why, everything screamed _wrong_ to him; he argued with the professors and his papers, while flawlessly written, contained what they called “historical inaccuracies” which “need proper citation to count”. He had managed to pass the required courses, but had swiftly decided to switch his focus to something he better suited.

Which had been the correct route in the end; the art minor he had decided upon instead had become an art major and turned into his career.

He attempts to get to Lavellan’s talk early, to get a decent seat. The room is fairly empty as he arrives, save for a few sparse clumps of students. Likely there only for the extra credit, he thinks, but it is not as judgemental a thought as it might have once been.

There’s an open spot near the front; as he heads up the aisle of chairs, he knocks shoulders with another of the viewers.

“My apologies,” he murmurs. The person he’s walked into - a tall elvhen man with sharp features and dark hair who looks too old to be a student but at least a decade younger than himself - does not respond, simply gives him a look that is, in a word, unpleasant.

Not worth his time. Solas brushes past him and takes his seat.

Like most presentations, it seems to take quite awhile for it to get started, even though it does begin directly on the hour. The room fills slowly, perhaps half students and a mix of faculty and public to round out the rest. But it does fill, and Solas finds that he is glad for that.

Less glad that several students sit next to him. One is familiar - Cillian, a senior art student who Solas knows is still finishing up a few core classes he had missed - the other few less so. Lavellan’s students, he imagines - they’ve got notebooks with a page of questions all typed out on otherwise pristine paper. It must be her extra credit assignment for attending the lecture, he thinks. He’d have done the same.

***

It occurs to him, as Lavellan steps up before the room and begins her lecture, that he has never seen her speak in a purely academic setting like this. It is different than overhearing a classroom discussion, and different from speaking with her one on one.

She stands straight and tall before her audience, impeccably dressed in a suit that Vivienne would have highly approved of, and there is _something_ about the way she holds herself. An ease by which she addresses those assembled, but also something which seems more than simply confidence, or strength, or proficiency with public speaking.

It is as though she has stared down kings and queens and gods and come out the better, and that this is nothing compared to that.

***

“ - now, we must first begin by defining what it means to say _Elvhen_. While in modern usage it is applied to all those who exhibit outward traits traditionally associated with elves, the actual term of _Elvhen_ can be divided into three loose time periods. The elvhen of _Arlathan_ , applied to all elvhen prior to TE 0, the _Dalish_ from TE 0 to Dragon 9:50, and those of the modern period. The term _dalish_ , of course, is a misnomer, as elvhen of that period were not all, in truth, dalish, but the term has become historically applied to all elvhen between the first formation of the veil and it’s sealing.”

The lights upon the stage are harsh; they cut sharp angles upon Lavellan’s face until she seems so much sharper than she otherwise is. A general addressing her troops, a leader speaking to those assembled. The same feeling that he had when first seeing her upon stage lingers, and Solas finds it hard to look away.

She is striking. She is, as he had already know, intelligent, well-spoken - but also so much more. Her words hit something in his chest, in his mind, enticing him to think, to consider. Like her words always have.

There is a gravity to her, there upon the stage, clicker in hand and a presentation projected behind her, that he had not been expecting. Though he supposes that he should have.

“Now, one of the most intriguing cases of myth and history intersecting is the case of the Dread Wolf,” Lavellan says, and it is then that a chill goes through Solas. It begins at the base of his spine and runs up each vertebrae until it settles at the juncture between spine and skull. He sits straighter in his seat, eyes riveted upon her, and there is something, _something_ that seems to itch within his mind.

Like a half remembered thought. Like something he _should_ know, but does not.

Lavellan clasps her hands behind her back; she stands tall and strong, her chin tipped up until her jaw becomes squared and her neck becomes a tall column. “Elvhen story about the Dread Wolf extends back to the time of Arlathan itself, but can be divided into two separate periods. There is, of course, debate as to the exact nature of who, or what, the Dread Wolf, was, but most cannot deny that someone by that name existed.”

She turns slightly, towards the presentation projected upon the wall. Reaches out to tap at the computer before her, to urge the presentation onward. An image of an ancient fresco, worn with age, appears in light upon the wall - a large, towering wolf, and a smaller, hooded figure. The latter’s face has been struck from the fresco - the photograph, even with fuzzy, projected light, shows how it has been hewn from rock with vicious blows.

Something twists his gut - a feeling of deep unease. His mind wants to fill in features where they no longer exist, piecing together the curve of a cheek and the cut of a jaw from the ruined image. A nose - but no eyes.

He imagines that, once, a hood obscured a great deal of the features of the man painted within that fresco.

If Lavellan shares his unease, she does not show it. Or - perhaps he imagines it, but a muscle seems to jump in her jaw. Her eyes flicker over the audience - when she meets his gaze, she smiles. Just a little, just the barest flicker, but it is there.

The unease abates, if only slightly.

“Earliest stories of the Dread Wolf arise from primarily oral traditions patterned after the remembered histories of Elvhenan. Myth and tale described the Dread Wolf as a trickster god who, in his worst iterations, caused strife and misfortune for the gods and the People. In his best incarnations, he was regarded as a morally ambiguous rebel who helped the People to break free of the chains placed upon them by the Enuvaris. It was not until 9:44 Dragon, with the rediscovery of the Vir Dirthara, that any verified texts were recovered relating to his part in the fall of Elvhenan. Though many of these texts were lost or in a format which could not be preserved, a number were transcribed and still exist to this day. Their legitimacy is a highly debated subject among historians, however, in conjunction with ruins discovered within the same time period, they painted a far kinder picture of the so called ‘god’.”

Each time she says _god_ , something twists in Solas’ gut, reforming the knot of discomfort. He _knows_ she does not subscribe to the idea that the Enuvaris were gods, but he cannot help it. _Gods_. The word echoes through his mind, scratches at something.

They were never _gods_.

 _Never_.

But he supposes that she knows this; her word choice is deliberate. These debates exist, even within groups who should know better. Myth turns generals into kings into gods - and time stretches the stories into legend, into falsehoods that are taken for truth.

And if a world was so far removed from what it should have been, would not a people scrabbling for something to call their own looked to stories of their past and clung to remnants of greatness, no matter how far removed from truth?

There is an ache in his skull. Dull and pounding, like he has forgotten to eat or forgotten to drink or - he’s _forgotten_.

_What has he forgotten?_

Oh, but it is a fascinating presentation that Lavellan has put together. An academic’s look at mythology and history, handled with such extreme professionalism. It is _fascinating_.

It is _terrifying_.

And she is so brilliant, so vibrant, that he - he _considers_. The gravity, the nuance with which she speaks - he _wants_ to believe her.

Oh, he wants her words to be real.

She is so remarkably unexpected. She is - she _is_ -

_(Real)_

She shows more slides, and now he sees elements of discussions the two of them have had - the evolution of artistic depictions of the Dread Wolf over time. He finds himself drawn to the images which are projected upon the wall, examining the differences that he sees. The ancient Elvhen frescos are expertly painted, and the carved statues that span time from before the creation of the Veil to well after are elegant, if simplistic. He cannot help the slight _harumph_ he makes in his throat when she comes to late dalish statues - smaller, squatter figures that seem more dog-like than wolf-like, made to be moved about with a camp rather than remain stationary.

“Even here,” she says, and the students that sit beside Solas scribble furiously upon their papers, “you will see how elements of earlier myth permeate later belief. By the time of the fall of the Dales, the story of the Dread Wolf had changed from that of a revolutionary to that of a feared trickster, and _yet_ these statues were placed around camps with the intent that they would guard the clan from harm. From the Dread Wolf, they said, and yet _why_ would one use the form of such a feared figure to guard against it? The Dread Wolf was a cunning man, according to all story, and would not be confused by depictions of himself - I suggest, then, as an alternative, that this practice was derived from an earlier one, where the Dread Wolf _himself_ was the protector.

“And _this_ can, in turn, be supported by earlier discoveries.” Her expression changes then, to something bright, something almost - _oh_ , but she is happy to speak of these things, to inform, to open up the potential for discourse. He can see it, like secrets spilling from her mouth, like things she has kept guarded - she _wants_ to talk about this. “There are numerous examples of iconography of the Dread Wolf throughout history, and many which were found alongside depictions of the so called mother goddess Mythal.” She clicks forward in the presentation. The fresco is replaced by a photograph of a decrepit statue of a wolf, the snout broken off and part of the chest hewn away. Beside it was a form of a great curling dragon, one of the wings shattered, jagged pieces of stone strewn around the ground at its base.”

Lavellan pauses for a moment, glancing back at the projection, before she looks out at the audience once more. “Such depictions have been found in numerous locations as more ancient sites have been uncovered. At shines, framing dormant eluvians - in one notable example, the wolf and dragon motif was found carved into the frame of a rather exaggerated supposed portrait of the father-god Elgar’nan. But I digress - Fen’harel can even be found within the great temple dedicated to Mythal herself. While there is much speculation, his position near the gates to the temple is outward facing, like the later practice of the dalish. His position in these early depictions is not as an adversary, but as a companion or a guard.”

Again, she pauses. Some of those in the audience have heard similar theories before, given how several of them nod along. The students scribble even more furiously. Past them, he catches a glimpse of the man he walked into - his brow is deeply creased.

“Despite being the only god in dalish tradition to not be imprisoned by the end of the Arlathan era, concrete stories of Fen’harel do not arise until around 9:44 Dragon. It is during this time period that we also see a resurgence in both stories and open worship of Mythal, a correlation that echoes the earlier stories and suggests an entwinement of their stories throughout myth and history. However, beginning in 9:44 Dragon and extending until the end of that age, these tales of Fen’harel once more paint him primarily as a trickster and antagonist, and by the time of the sealing of the Veil he appears to be at odds with Mythal herself. It is, of course, a matter of speculation whether or not the Fen’harel figure that appears in 9:44 is the same Dread Wolf spoken of in prior legend, or if he was simply someone who took on the mantle to inspire those who followed him. A highly decisive argument among historians, and one unlikely to find an concrete answer.”

Her lips quirk into something that might be a smile. “Similarly, accounts of Mythal’s life, death, and actual existence have never been fully verified, but folklore of the time period and after holds that Mythal is never truly gone and that she is, in fact, a greater trickster than Fen’harel ever was and ever will be.”

  


***

  


She takes questions at the end of the presentation, calm and collected and smiling - even at one person who seems determined to pick a fight. Solas lingers in his seat until she has spoken to the last of the audience members; the students who had sat next to him ambush her as she gets off the stage. Cillian seems to be full of questions, and Lavellan seems happy to answer.

There is an uncertainty in Solas’ chest as he waits. Part of it is like that strange, twin instincts that have been there since he first met her - the want to know more of her and the need to flee - but most is that awkward sense of not knowing if he should wait to speak with her, if he’s just another audience member, or -

She catches his eye over the shoulder of one of her students, and the way she smiles at him causes something rather odd to happen in ribcage.

His heart does such strange things when she smiles at him.

“Well?” she says a few minutes later as she approaches his seat; she sits down backwards upon the seat before him, arms folded over the back. Up close he can see dark circles beneath her eyes that she’s tried to hide with makeup. She looks exhausted and yet acts as though she has so much vibrancy and energy. “What did you think? Was it _fascinating_ enough for you?”

She is teasing him.

He finds that he does not mind.

“It was enlightening,” he says, and watches a brilliant smile bloom across her face. “A very apt summation of how elvhen history has been distorted over the years and how one must examine events from various angles to attempt to determine what aspects hold truth. Yet I do have one question.”

“Only one?” She drums the fingers of her right hand against her left; this close he can see the joints of her prosthetic. “That seems unusual.”

“I tend to prefer answering questions, not asking them,” he says, and she laughs.

“Then it _is_ unusual. Well, go right ahead, Solas. What do you want an answer for?”

He looks at her steadily; his heart drums oddly in his chest, and the skin upon his cheeks crawls with the uncertainty that always seems to plague him when she is near.

What answer, indeed?

“Your opinion on the Dread Wolf,” he says, and her eyes go wide, the smile on her lips turning to an _oh_ of surprise. “You stated that there were two distinctly different traditions associated with him, and that _some_ scholars believe they were one and the same, but that others believe it simply a title passed down or appropriated by a historical figure in 9:44 Dragon who identified strongly with the mythological figure. And yet you did not give a concrete answer as to what _your_ belief upon the matter is.”

Lavellan sits back, arching her spine as she stretches. She bites down upon her lip, a look of concern upon her face for a moment.

“ _That_ ,” she says, “is much more than a simple question. And they _are_ trying to close down the presentation hall. Why don’t I take you out and we can discuss this over drinks?”

It is a terrible idea; he knows this instinctively. Like when they shook hands upon meeting and he felt as though he should be as far from her as possible. Like falling asleep upon Dorian’s couch beside her.

He is no stranger to looking at a terrible idea and seeing it as the best course of action.

“I would like that,” he says, and her smile blooms once more. She pushes herself up from her chair.

“Well? Come on, then; I know just the place.”

*

They sit in the corner of a dimly lit bar only a few blocks away from campus. It’s not the sort of place Solas usually frequents himself, the whole place make up as though it’s been taken from one of the interests sites his students are always going on about. It’s something that could conceivably be called rustic chic, but might more appropriately be called hipster. Lavellan has ordered herself a heaping plate of fries and a bright blue drink that comes in a mason jar. Solas orders a hard cider that _also_ comes in a mason jar; Lavellan insists on putting it on her tab.

“So, you want to know about Fen’harel,” she says as she picks up her drink. There’s sugar upon the rim.

“I want to know _your_ thoughts on him,” he says, and only then does he realize how important that distinction is. She could talk about the Dread Wolf for the entirety of the night, in fact she nearly _had_ , but what is missing, what some part of him needs to know, if _her_ thoughts, not the historical facts.

Lavellan is quiet for a long moment. She doesn’t look at him; there is gold dusted upon her eyelids and as she looks down at the table between them, Solas can see how little hints of glitter are caught upon her eyelashes.

“ _My_ thoughts.” Still, she says nothing more, hesitating in a way that she had not when she stood before an audience. She sips at her drink, licks sugar from her lips. Her eyes flicker to him and she tips her head up until her jaw becomes strong, square.

“I have to warn you, this won’t be the most academically cited discussion,” she tells him. She spins her drink upon the table; there’s a ring of condensation upon the wood.

“I suspected as much. Personal opinion rarely is. Nevertheless, I am interested in what you have to say.”

She makes a noise in her throat that he can barely hear over the music that plays in the bar. Several tables from them, a woman with white-blond hair and delicately pointed ears accidentally knocks over her drink. Her companions roar with laughter.

“Well, I’ll start at the beginning, then. The simple truth, as I know it. The Fen’harel from Elvhenan and the Fen’harel who surfaced in 9:41 Dragon are one and the same. In fact, I only entertain the idea that they are _not_ the same,” and here she laughs, “is that modern historians cannot verify it for themselves.”

Solas feels a pressure at his temples as she speaks; something about what she’s said causes a buzzing in the back of his mind, once more the strange feeling like he has forgotten something. He picks up his drink and takes a sip, hoping it might ease the feeling. “And why do you think they are one and the same?”

“Numerous reasons. Most of what I spoke on tonight could be called a _reason_.” She pushes a stray curl of hair from her eyes, hooking it back behind her pointed ear. “I wholeheartedly believe that there was a time when magic existed in Thedas as more than memories in dreams and echoes in stone. I believe there existed a time before the Veil was sealed, and I believe there was a time before the Veil even _existed_. And if I hold these things to be true, then many bits of myth and story hold the potential to be closer to fact.”

He scoffs at that. “A slippery slope fallacy, but I can understand your reasoning. Though...you believe the Dread Wolf lived for thousands of years because...magic.”

Lavellan rolls her eyes at him. “You make it sound so silly. _Yes_. Ancient Elvhen were inherently magical; they existed in a time _before_ the Veil. They might well not have been much removed from spirits themselves, for all that we know.”

The pressure in his skull builds; he frowns deeply. “Ghosts and dreams,” he says, and she shakes her head furiously.

“ _Spirits_. Consider this - the Veil as a barrier between the waking and the dreaming. When there was no Veil, there was little separation between magic and reality. With the Veil, distinctions grew. With it sealed? Magic can only exist in shadows and cracks of what it once was. But consider what someone who was born in a time without separation would be like.”

“Very old,” he says, and he sips at his cider again. It’s very sweet, almost sickly so. Sweeter than most ciders he drinks.

“Was that a joke?”

“It would defeat the purpose to admit that it was,” he says, but it seems to have broken some odd tension that had begun to build between them. Lavellan sits back, hooks one leg over the other knee, and laughs.

“He _would_ be very old. Anyway. Look, you asked for my opinion. I think he was real, I think he was the same man in each appearance, and I think his story is a dreadfully sad, cyclic morality tale of what happens when pride and power intersect with great loss.”

It is such a curious thing to say. Everything about her is so strangely curious.

“A cyclic morality tale? An interesting way to word it.” He lifts his drink; it leaves a ring of water on the wood of the table. “But the differences in the two stories do not show a pattern beyond the destructive and trickster aspects of Fen’harel.”

“False.” She has an intent look in her eyes, but there’s something wary in her expression. She runs her fingers over her left elbow - where her prosthetic meets what remains of her arm, he realizes. “You’re casting Fen’harel in the same role in each instance.”

“And you aren’t.”

She shakes her head; her fingers drum against the elbow of her missing arm. “You aren’t going to like what I have to say,” she tells him, and he frowns.

“Are you so certain of my reaction? Do you, or do you not, cast him in the role of the villain?”

“ _Nothing_ in this world is so simple, much less the Dread Wolf.” There is a bite to her voice; she leans forward upon the table, drink pushed to the side. The silver branches upon her hand gleam. “But if you _must_ know, then I’ll explain, though historically speaking, I don’t always get the best reaction to saying this,” she says. Her fingers work in small circles upon her skin; he wonders if her arm aches. “So, the odds seem to suggest that you _won’t_ like this.”

“Historically speaking, you haven’t said it to me before,” he points out. She laughs.

“Oh, Dread Wolf, the things I say about you.” She says it as though to herself, and then she leans forward upon the table. “Fen’harel, in the time of the Enuvaris, lead a rebellion against incredibly powerful god-like beings intent upon shaping the world in their own image, to its destruction. He destroyed his own world in an attempt to make things better; while he is a trickster, he is not a _destroyer_ so much as a rebel. When he reappears in 9:41 Dragon, his role shifts to fill the same as the Enuvaris did before. Where before he was a rebel, he becomes instead the power that runs unchecked - a destroyer who thinks himself a redeemer, who attempted to change the world according to his whim.”

His jaw clenches; his hand tightens upon his drink. Lavellan is watching him carefully. There is a furrow between her brows. For a moment, in the light of the bar, she seems like some ancient, endless being herself.

“If he becomes the new Enuvaris, and the tale is cyclic in nature, then there must be a counterpart to him. A new ‘Dread Wolf’ so to speak. Who do you place in that role? The Inquisitor?” His words are terse and tightly controlled. “If so, that naturally leads to an assumption on your part about the specifics of what the Inquisitor did.”

Lavellan is smiling. He does not understand why. There is something devastatingly sad about her expression, and it makes his insides ache and his head ring.

“What assumption do you think I’m making?” she asks him. He forces his hand to relax its grip upon his half-empty drink.

“If the Inquisitor plays the role of the Dread Wolf, and the stories are, in fact, cyclic, then she must have done something that is the counterpart to Fen’harel’s creation of the Veil. It means that you assume it was her who fully sealed away magic from the waking world.”

Lavellan’s smile grows brittle. A muscle jumps in her cheek, and she looks so very sad.

“She would have changed her world to protect it from a madman who sought to destroy it,” he says, and watches as she draws in a sharp breath, her shoulders jolting, her fingers tightening along the joint of her left arm.

“Not a madman,” she says. They lock eyes; he feels the rapid beating of his heart within his chest, anger he doesn’t understand tucked beneath his breastbone. “But yes. The Dread Wolf was was a sad, ancient being who had lost his world and could not reconcile the one he woke up to. His only recourse was to become what he had once hated, and in doing so, the Inquisitor had to become the sort of being who could stop him.”

His mouth feels dry. The glass of his drink is still cool beneath his fingers, though the ice is melting; he lifts it and drinks. The cider tastes too sweet, almost rancid upon his tongue, but he resists making a face.

“So she sealed away all magic and finished what he started. Given how little is known about the last Inquisitor, apart from speculation and centuries old rumor...it is as good a story as any.”

“It’s my preferred story,” she says. Her fingers leave the joint of her arm and she reaches for her nearly empty drink. “But do you see what I mean? To consider it thusly, you _must_ see how it is a repetitive story.”

“If you’re right,” he says, slowly, still mulling over her words, still processing what she has said, “and the Inquisitor filled the role of the Dread Wolf, then wouldn’t she eventually follow the same path that he did?”

And Lavellan laughs. The sound catches in her throat until it bubbles up, and she sits back against her seat and smiles at him while slowly shaking her head.

“Well,” she says, remnants of her laughter still caught between her words, “I imagine if she went to sleep and woke up several thousand years later to find the world changed, she very well might. But I’ve always wondered what would have happened if the Dread Wolf _hadn’t_ slept, and if he’d lived in the world he created. If he would have seen the wonder in it. Because there’s always wonder and goodness and worth in a world, even when magic is gone.”

He sits there for a moment, and all he can do is stare at her. All he can do is look at her and think about how very much she can turn everything on end with just simple words. Because he _feels_ like something has been turned upon its head, that something has shifted, and just like so many things the _what_ and _why_ of that feeling is just out of reach.

He considers the nearly empty cider glass before him. It’s an easy explanation for it, but he knows that’s not it. It’s something about what she’s said, it’s something about _her_. There’s a pressure in his chest - not pain, not loss, not sadness, just a pressure like something’s caught there, lodged beside his heart. Or maybe it’s just his heart, beating too fast.

“It might have done nothing at all, if he’d lived it,” he says, and Lavellan shakes her head. Again, the smile she gives him seems tinged with something sad, something longing.

“It might have, but...I think it would have done something. Even a few years...even a few more years could have changed everything.”

“That is...a very romantic way of viewing it.”

She laughs once more, sets down her empty drink. The lights outside the bar flicker; there’s frost upon the windows. “So I have been told. I prefer to think that way, even though I know that sometimes it’s impossible to let go of the past.”

“That is true,” he says, and he looks at her, and he thinks -

_She -_

She sits there, before him, with all this knowledge that she should not have, speaking as though myth and magic and _the Dread Wolf_ are all real. And -

_And -_

He feels like he cannot breathe.

She _is -_

The light from the neon sign outside of the bar cuts through the window; it is blue and white and falls across her face. She is illuminated, standing in a glen, looking at him with wide eyes as branches fall away from her skin, and she is -

so

_beautiful._

The world has tilted; he is off-kilter, unsteady. Something is just out of reach, and he cannot - he reaches for it, for something that is bright and vibrant and flickering at the edges of everything. Reaches - and finds only his breath, caught there in his chest along with his heart.

“Solas?” she says, a question in her voice, a tremor. “You’re staring at me. I can only guess that means you are deep in thought, or perhaps you have had too much to drink for one night.”

“That must be it,” he says. They laugh; his mind buzzes and tilts.

“Coffee?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you like coffee?” she repeats, each word more articulate this time. “My place is not far from here. I could make us some coffee. We could - continue. To talk.”

His lips part; hers press together as though she is worrying over the words she has just said.

“Just to talk,” she reiterates. “Just - “

“To talk.” He smiles. There is a weigh upon his chest. “Coffee sounds quite acceptable.”

  


***

  


Empty mason jars on a table; she has sugar on the edge of her lip and gold on her eyelids. He pulls on his coat as she pays the tab. He holds the door for her as she winds a bright green scarf around her neck.

There are ravens scavenging crumbs on the sidewalk; they scatter up to the eaves when the door opens.

Outside it is cold; frost upon the ground, coating the pavement and making it slick.. His ears numb quickly, his nose to.

They walk close; her shoulder brushes his.

“This way,” she says, and she takes his hand, or maybe he takes hers. They each wear gloves, but still his fingertips burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This holiday season has been super busy and very tiring for me; I hope you all enjoy this long overdue chapter, and I'm glad I could get it done before the New Year!
> 
> Bits of the discussion in this chapter are actually some of the very first things I wrote for this, back in September before I knew it was going to turn into a bigger story, but it took awhile to turn it into a full chapter! A huge thank you to [redsummerrose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSummerRose/pseuds/RedSummerRose) for helping to untangle the end!


End file.
